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- Endless Fluff
- Endless Fluff
- Endless Fluff
- Endless Fluff
Valdis Story: Abyssal City
Released On: Sep 8, 2013
83
7.7
All Platforms
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
83
100% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
83
100% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
I had a wonderful time playing Valdis Story. Time and time again it exceeded my expectations, and it's a privilege that I was able to play and review it. Just when I thought I had seen the greatest boss or most intense challenge, it threw another one at me.
It simultaneously succeeds as both an action platformer and a Metroidvania with RPG elements, and it's a must-play for fans of either genre. I'm already excited to play as the other two characters eventually, but I also can't wait to see what the future holds for this franchise long term -- because there's a lot to build on.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 91 User Ratings
7.7
69% Positive
63 Ratings
63 Ratings
19% Mixed
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
12% Negative
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 91 User Ratings
7.7
69% Positive
63 Ratings
63 Ratings
19% Mixed
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
12% Negative
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
This game is perfect in terms of gameplay. Story, bosses, level design, different abilities, characters - all of them are fantastic. I wish it was a little bit longer, but better to be too short than too long. Only thing I am not crazy about, and this is purely my issue and not the designers, is the art direction isn't my favorite.
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PC
I will try to keep this short, but if you are a big fan of Castlevania SOTN and Super Metroid this is a must have.
The game has tons of areas to explore, loads of weapons/armor items to find, a whole lot of customization, and everything about it is basically top notch at a budget price.
The combat never gets boring, even if it takes a little getting used to. This game borrows quite a bit from SOTN but puts its own spin on things with a lot of platforming challenges (puzzles maybe) and unique spells and abilities for both of the playable characters. leveling up gives you points to distribute to your stats and they all make a big difference. There are tons of different abilities and skills to learn.
The game really nails the exploration aspect of Super Metroid. I constantly found myself running around looking for new areas and items to acquire. There is a real feeling of mystery and adventure as you're adventuring around, even if you have specific goals most of the time (find a character here, make your way to a certain town to the east, etc.)
I am not just giving this game a 10 because I like it a lot, I think it deserves it. It's hands down the best metroid-vania style game to come out in a LONG time. It's criminally underrated and it's really a shame it's so under the radar. A game with this much going for it should be on year end "best-of" lists.
My only complaints would be that the jumping arc of your character is a little weird. Sometimes it makes the platforming kind of wonky, but you get used to it. If you think about it, the jump arc on Super Metroid was pretty weird, too. :P
Also, the story wasn't bad and I'm glad that it didn't bog down the gameplay (it never spits endless long winded dialogue at you) but it wasn't exactly memorable for me. Maybe I wasn't paying a lot of attention because I wanted to get onto one of the awesome memorable boss battles.
Only other complaint is that some of the enemies get palette swapped and reused throughout the game. There's a decent diversity but I would have liked to see some more enemy types. I will give it a reprieve since it's an independent (and amazing) budget title.
I've played other so called "great" metroid-vania style games (the underwhelming Dust: Elysian Tale and the extremely disappointing Xeodrifter), and I am a harsh critic. But i can without a doubt recommend to this anybody looking for a great, challenging, and rewarding action-rpg-metroidvania type game. I've put 30 hours into it and I'm still coming back to playing it after beating it once already. Even the music is top notch, creating the mood perfectly and adding its own flair on the whole thing. Really high quality stuff.
I'm serious. JUst get this game. It's worth every penny. It's a freaking steal. I hate most modern games and the direction gaming is going, and this is true to the classics in every way. Like I said, it borrows a lot from the best in the genre but changes it up with a unique and fun combat system and lots of customization with quite a bit of challenge thrown in. It all comes together being one of my favorite gaming experiences I've had in a really long time.
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PC
An amazing "vania" game, and one that should really be more popular considering its qualities. The structure is the one veteran gamers know and love, but it's been improved with a complex combat system and deep leveling and ability trees. Quite the treat, especially considering the low cost. It isn't perfect, but, if this is the level of this team's first project, we can't wait for what's next.
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.
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]
Reviving the gameplay of classics is dangerous — too often our memories betray us, forgetting the problems that game development has overcome over the years.
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.
Not nearly enough press coverage on this game - unfairly got overlooked. As otherwise noted, it's derivative of Symphony of the Night and other great Metroidvania games. Personally, I feel it stands head and shoulders above other recent entries like Dust: An Elysian Tale and Guacamelee Relative to both, the story is more interesting, there is materially more life breathed into the characters. Similarly, combat is much, much deeper (in exponential terms) and crisper in this game. The game is about three or four times longer than Guacamelee and Dust, and has more replay value due to better difficulty scaling and multiple characters. Further, the RPG elements, in terms of leveling, a host of items to find and upgrade, decisions in the game with substantial consequences, etc. are all present. I haven't enjoyed a Metroidvania this much since SoTN. If you don't like the genre then invariably it's not for you, otherwise strongly recommended. It's an injustice that IGN/Gamespot etc. have not given this more coverage.
One small negative, upon rare occasions the game froze on my computer and proceeded to crash. This happened about 5 times in roughly 20 hours of play so definitely not game breaking, but was annoying nonetheless.
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PC
I'm giving this an 7 because there's a lot to do in the game, lots of options, and so on.
The problem is that it is sloppy, which makes it extremely hard. There's also a huge learning curve to play the game well. Way higher than most any Castlevania game. You can't play this casually and expect to get through.
But, as other people point out, it relies so heavily on endless boring timed puzzles that are unforgiving. At least those are for optional items.
You have no warning for bosses, and are then stuck in an endless loop of grinding to beat the boss. I'm not sure, but I think if you don't do awesome at bosses you don't get stat upgrades. So... how is that fair?
Jumping puzzles abound. HATE jumping puzzles. This trope was thrown out years ago for most games. But there are single-block cubes you have to land on. Enemies attack you, but if you attack them your character moves automatically and falls off. Oh, and performance issues make the game stutter at random moments, sometimes when I'm in the middle of a jump, and I mistime the jump. Ugh.
Having so many items and options is also a bit of a problem, too. It's very unclear which items to use at any given time and the spells are clunky to change. I stopped using spells altogether because of that, but this is the same problem one of the Castlevania games had.
Controllers almost invariably don't work. None of my Logitech gamepads are recognized. Apparently the Xbox 360 usb controller works well, but of course that's the one kind I don't have.
Still, there's a lot of high quality art, animations, and it's more or less a reasonably solid fighting engine. It's fun for a few hours, so I'm rating on the amount of enjoyment I got out of it. A good solid afternoon of fun. After that, I suggest giving up before the fiery Temple (or at the wizard with a sword) and moving on unless you seriously like grinding on jumping puzzles and unforgiving bosses. There's more pain then reward at this point unless you're really committed.
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PC
It's a decent enough game and I didn't really mind the platforming puzzles but I find it disappointing that the game was released unfinished and over a year later, there still has been no update on the other content that was supposed to be there.
Also, if I remember correctly, the difficulty is a bit all over the place, with a lot of fights being manageable while others are just insane. This has kept me from finishing the game a second time with the second character and on the highest difficulty. I got to the first boss just fine but then I was like "You got to be kidding!"
That said - it DOES take a while to get through the game even just once, so depending on what price you pay for it, it is still absolutely worth it. I just find it unfortunate that it possibly will never be finished and I'm also not a huge fan of the art style. It looks more like what you would see from a hobbyist on deviantart rather than a professional game artist (even if it's indie games - just check out Bastion, Braid, This War Of Mine, etc.).
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PC
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 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 ****, 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 **** 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?
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PC
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 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.
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Summary Valdis Story A.C. is a side scrolling action adventure for P.C. with an emphasis on intricate and rewarding combat as well as deep play style customization. The player will assume the role of Wyatt as they explore the ruins of a holy city that was lost many years ago. Wyatt must battle various types of demons, angels, and a new threat te...
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Sep 8, 2013
Developer:
- Endless Fluff
Publisher: Endless Fluff
Genres:
