Valdis Story: Abyssal City

 PC
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 87 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 60 out of 87
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 87
  3. Negative: 11 out of 87

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  1. chewy6982
    Jun 24, 2015
    3
    This is a metroidvania type game that frankly does not deserve to be called that term. Metroid and castlvania were much more fun to play and way better designed. Those are fighting, RPG, and exploring games. This is a timed jump and running platform game more than a fighting game. So unless you like doing that teenage mutant ninja turtles electric death water scene over and over a billionThis is a metroidvania type game that frankly does not deserve to be called that term. Metroid and castlvania were much more fun to play and way better designed. Those are fighting, RPG, and exploring games. This is a timed jump and running platform game more than a fighting game. So unless you like doing that teenage mutant ninja turtles electric death water scene over and over a billion times over then this game is not for you, becuase thats what doing those stupid jump timed puzzles felt like. Everything in this game is pretty great (including the fighting and rpg leveling) except for one thing that totally brings it down: the platforming. You can't ignore the platforming unfortunately, its required and even focused on. The controls for it feel so terrible, wall jumping and double jumping isn't made easy at all, and it is not satisfying like in metroid or castlevania, instead you just pray for luck and feel stress and frustration relief when its completed instead of satisfaction. Everything you do will require timed jumps, you have to do puzzles that are literally timed and jump all around avoiding the slightest hit or you have to do it all over again. 1 battle? next scene is timed jump platform that may take an hour to complete, just jumping. boss scene? another jump puzzle. Getting a special item? more jump timed puzzles. Backtracking? more jumped timed puzzles. Going to the village? more jump and running timed puzzles. You will spend 10 times more of your time just running and doing frustrating timed jumps than fighting, and fighting is the fun part of the game, platforming is boring, repetitive, and frustrating. Making it much worse is the fact that you can't avoid it, it makes it 10x more aggravating to backtrack since you do need to backtrack to find new items and discover new areas, and you won't know if you are failing because of your skill, the fact the controls suck, or that you don't have an item that will give you that one second of extra quickness to complete the timed jumping and running puzzle. I absolutely hated that portion of the game, and i realized 90% of the game is trying to hit a button, run and jump without getting hit by any enemies or obstacles, and reaching the end location before the time limit is up with an absurdly low tolerance of delay. That is most of the game and it kind of sucks because it could easily have been a masterpiece if that part of the game was just eliminated and added just more game features to it, creatures and items. Metroid and castlevania did it much better, and focused on the items that gave clear abilities to clearly reach unaccessible areas before. Flying bat/cloud, double space jump, small sticky space ball.. so much more simple yet it totally worked and all cool, instead Valdis used timed jump puzzles and total crap spell upgrades to make these items accessible, so much more frustrating and less satisfying. When will you game designers learn timed quests and tasks never add to the fun?… Expand
  2. blue14
    Nov 10, 2013
    3
    Man I was so hyped for this game at first. The MUSIC, art style, setting it has everything going for it. You can tell the creators really put a lot into this game over the years. The lack of voice over in the dialog was something I could easily overlook as the game presents very well. Everything was smooth sailing except for a few hard timed puzzles. Even up through the first two orMan I was so hyped for this game at first. The MUSIC, art style, setting it has everything going for it. You can tell the creators really put a lot into this game over the years. The lack of voice over in the dialog was something I could easily overlook as the game presents very well. Everything was smooth sailing except for a few hard timed puzzles. Even up through the first two or three bosses I was fine despite some rather annoying fight-extending mechanics like random teleporting around the screen. That was until I cam across Magus. Needless to say this game does not hold your hand past the first boss. Be prepared to try each boss 20-40 times and this is on normal. This is clearly not a casual game.

    By this time the controls beginning to show their true colors as the all-important dodge mechanic is used by pressing down+left/right. This wasn't a problem if you only need to time one of these maneuvers however stringing them together especially in different directions was an effort in futility. Sometimes it works and sometimes your character will sit there and take the full brunt of an enemy attack despite you "dodging". Oh, and sometimes you will randomly "dodge" straight down while trying to platform left or right resulting in having to redo your previous five minutes of platforming. This could have been a result of the controller I was using having a joystick however a keyboard didn't seem to do much better. Magic is also tied to a similar system. RT+down/left/right/up will cast a variety of customization spells after a couple of attempt of course.

    Sticky controls coupled with the fact that anything a boss attack, a trash mob, a spawned flying sword (or four as Magus is fond of) will knock you back and off platforms makes parts of the game keyboard-breakingly frustrating. Ledge grabbing, long a staple of platforming games, seems random. Sometimes you will grab a ledge (only to be knocked off by a sword/mob/dodge) and sometimes your character will just face hump the wall for several jumps. Nothing I have played recently has made my blood boil like having to pray to the platforming gods that I will grab a ledge in a boss battle, have my wish be granted, only to be chain knocked off by a boss attack, a sword, a lightning attack, and have to start all over again with half health.

    Do you like timed puzzles? Great! This game has them in spades. And I'm not talking about the kind with a second or two of leeway for you to complete. I'm talking the kind that have 9 frame perfect jumps complete with dodging for extra speed and unreliable magic abilities. And I'm not even talking about the end of the game. This was happening from the second boss onward. Want that upgraded armor? You had better be prepared to do the same jumping puzzle 10, 20, 50 times until you can input the correct set of commands in frame perfect timing.

    My hat is off to the artist and composer for this game. Hell even the overall design is pretty interesting and reminds me a lot of Dust. That being said, some sticky controls, frustrating mechanics, and some huge difficulty spikes drag this game down hard. I'm all for challenging games however challenging games need to have airtight controls and, in the case of a plat former, perfect jump physics to be successful. This game has neither. It's a shame too the game had so much promise.    … Expand
  3. ikillomega
    Nov 1, 2013
    1
    This is a dreadful example of a Metroidvania wannabe. The game is flooded with terrible design, choppy, iffy and twitchy controls, dreadful, ugly graphics and is all around a weak experience. The game pretends to give you a degree of freedom by throwing you in what appears to be an open, Metroidvania-esque world, but it blocks you from backtracking with cheap tricks like overly-powerfulThis is a dreadful example of a Metroidvania wannabe. The game is flooded with terrible design, choppy, iffy and twitchy controls, dreadful, ugly graphics and is all around a weak experience. The game pretends to give you a degree of freedom by throwing you in what appears to be an open, Metroidvania-esque world, but it blocks you from backtracking with cheap tricks like overly-powerful bosses, one-way doors and requirements for abilities you do not get until later. It is almost entirely linear, disguised as open. There is little to explore, the platforming is loose and floaty, the combat is fast and fluid, but this is negated by the fact that enemies attack you through combos and skills, and endless attacks that are either unblockable, or require you to use a dodge that cancels your combo.

    The game has typical design for a cheap modern attempt at this genre, but feels claustrophobic and repetitive. Unlike Symphony of the Night, which has well-thought-out, varied environments very close together, Valdis Story's art is a seemingly-endless repetition of the same sprites. The bad gameplay makes this even worse at times when there are platforms that look accessible, but aren't, or they simply lead to an alcove at the top of the screen, because attempts in vein to access these ledges often send you falling back down to an arduous vertical room.

    The upgrade system is rudimentary and uninspired, the gear system is pointlessly demanding, requiring you to pick up or even buy an item, only to be forced to use it and other resources to upgrade it at a shop, occasionally forcing you to buy gear twice! The addition of spells is hindered by a terrible casting control scheme, that, like the cancel/dodge ability are necessary for beating the game, but are broken as they do not work properly at times, leaving you spamming a button before a spell or ability will finally decide to work.

    Super Metroid is my favorite video game of all time, and many games in this genre are in my wheelhouse, and I have NOT played a game like this that is more frustrating and less fun than Valdis Story. I feel like half the travel and map navigation is nothing more than busy work and the RPG elements that require a level of grinding are locked because each room only has a few enemies, who are not worth near enough experience points to level you, forcing you to move through rooms to reset the spawns to power up. This is a very poorly-designed game, obviously made by either schizophrenic Otakus or retarded monkeys, I'm not sure which. If you like this game, fine, but I found it to be the single most joyless experience I've had all year with a game that SHOULD and COULD have been good. Valdis Story is WORSE THAN SIM CITY! Because with all of Sim City's faults, it is technically playable, and you can, to an extent, play it the way you want. Valdis Story's attempt at variety is a forced, one-way street of repeating combos, uninspired enemies, cheap and annoying boss fights and terrible artwork.

    Period.    … Expand
  4. cornfingers
    Dec 3, 2014
    0
    Valdis Story: Abyssal City: A game that only got a high rating because nobody actually finished it and definitely a true gem in examples of why people actually have to use Game Maker Studio... because through all the poor design choices and clunky menus... it's obvious that this game only made it because of the artwork.

    The kickstarter promised great fighting mechanics and combos, but    Valdis Story: Abyssal City: A game that only got a high rating because nobody actually finished it and definitely a true gem in examples of why people actually have to use Game Maker Studio... because through all the poor design choices and clunky menus... it's obvious that this game only made it because of the artwork.

    The kickstarter promised great fighting mechanics and combos, but all everybody really got was the same three moves repeated over and over along with poorly placed, unrebindable controls and the worlds most annoying cancel... which is really JUST a glorified dash, that other games let you bind to the proper keys. But hey! The enemies can infi-combo you, so maybe the kickstarter was talking about how good the combos would be for them! Oh and the spikes... apparently those can infi-combo better than the player character as well. In the end though I guess you can't really talk about how responsive controls are when a game even has slow down issues on an i-7 processor... I guess it should just be expected at that point.

    The controls are definitely not stellar, no matter how many die-hard fans accost you with "git gud" memes and an obvious attempt at feeling superior for once in theirs lives. No, the controls are bad and unresponsive... yes, you can make them work, but that doesn't mean it's an excuse to have them and the difficulty shouldn't be in fighting them to do what you want. The real truth is it's a platforming game, with bad platforming and a wall jump mechanic that seriously needs a revision.

    The bosses start off fun and challenging, but soon spiral down into mass projectile and minion spamming nonsense, and by the end of the game you're fighting a screen of bright colors and no discernible hitbox while you're being infi-comboed because you missed one dash because the game felt like being unresponsive that one time. I guess it's hard to invent a new boss pattern after you've used up all the ones you know on the first two...

    The story is terrible and the writing makes you wonder if they've even written anything before, as it's littered with bad habits and constant references to things that have never been previously explained... similar to a fan-fiction, but imagine the subject the fan-fiction was about simply didn't even exist... The ending was anti-climatic and left the feeling of "So? Big whoop? Was that supposed to be surprising?" It's not a twist if it isn't even relevant to the story and came off as nothing more than a corny way to end the game. Overall, unenjoyable story and definitely worth mashing your buttons through.

    The artwork is great, and definitely the best, if not only (read as only) aspect worth playing the game to experience.... although, just like the combo system... the artwork is repetitive and doesn't have a lot of variety. The townsfolk all consist of the same 3 character designs and the portraits next to the speech dialogs always show the same emotion; lending absolutely nothing more than getting in the way of reading the situation properly. In fact, the whole game comes off as a concept or prototype that you'd pitch to a publisher... and not a final game.

    To summarize, if you want to play a good game, just go play SOTN or co. and if you want to play something obviously made in game maker... don't... or better yet, just hire their artist and make something yourself, because it'd be hard pressed not to be a hundred fold better.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

37
#37 Best PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Games.cz
    Mar 25, 2014
    80
    A great and hardcore platformer with RPG elements that's been created by just two people. But actually, this information does not matter while playing. The important thing is that Valdis Story is excellent fun for plenty of hours.
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  2. MMORPG.com
    Mar 17, 2014
    75
    If you’re a fan of Metroidvania games, or indie games in general, you should definitely check out Valdis Story. With multiple playable characters, an interesting world to explore, and engaging gameplay, there are few reasons not to give this gem a chance. It may not do everything perfectly and it doesn’t tread much new ground, but it delivers a great experience wrapped up inside of a beautiful package for a cheap price. Bust out your PC game pad and take Wyatt on his adventure in the Abyssal City.
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  3. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 23, 2014
    80
    One can’t really complain about the lack of platformers these days, but when you pick up Valdis, you can be sure of getting the highest quality available. [Issue#238]
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