Whenever it comes to “discovering” video games or video game franchises that I have never heard of before, I have always liked looking towards the past to find these titles. Not to say I have never wanted to play more unique games that have been released in more recent years, but there is just a certain charm that titles from the 80s and 90s have that just simply cannot be replicated by newer games, hence why I keep coming back to them over and over again. I mean hell, why else do you think for the 300+ games I have reviewed on this website, they have all been ones from the 70s to the early 90s? I am just a diehard fan of those eras of video games, and I don’t think any bad games like Alex Kidd or A Boy and His Blob will ever change that for me. And hey, with this research into the games of yesteryear, I typically end up finding a lot of games I end up enjoying and adding to my personal favorites, such as the case with today’s game, Valis: The Fantasm Soldier.

I have been wanting to check out this series for the LONGEST time, ever since I saw ProJared play the fourth game on his Let’s Play channel, and of course, because of my chronological mindset, I had to start with the original game. But even doing that was difficult, because when I went to purchase the original game on the Switch, I found that they had listed three different versions of the game on the store, those being the MSX, Genesis, and PC-Engine versions. I had debated with myself for a good ten minutes or so which one to cover, whether it would be best to go with the original version, the one that most people have probably played, or what was undeniably gonna be the best one? After thinking on it, I decided to get the best version, which is the PC-Engine version, and I am so glad that I did. I found myself having a great time with the game, thinking that it was pretty good. Sure, it doesn’t do too much to innovate the genre, but for what I got here, I still ended up having a really good time.

The story is literally the most generic anime plot I have ever seen (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even watch anime), but I ended up liking it despite how predictable it was, the graphics are great, not only having a great style, but also taking advantage of the PC-Engine’s capabilities with extra animation and sprite movements that look great to this day, the music is pretty good, having plenty of rocking tracks that go pretty well with both the action in game and the genre that the game is inspired by, the control is very solid, working as well as it should, even if the jumping can be a little rough around the edges, and the gameplay is pretty standard, but still manages to be fun due to what it contains and what it is paired with.

The game is your typical action 2D platformer, where you take control of Yuko, the eponymous Fantasm Soldier, go through plenty of typical levels for the type of game this is, take on many different enemies that will attempt to take you down on your way to conquer evil, gather plenty of powerups, health and magic items to give you an advantage against your foes along the way, and take on a set of tough, yet manageable bosses. Now, yes, it is your typical 2D platforming game, which is to be expected since it released in 1986, but for those familiar with the genre, you would know that even if there isn’t too many unique elements present, it can be excused if the gameplay is solid enough, and when it comes to Valis, it manages to do just that. I was having a lot of fun playing through the game, with a good amount of the powerups being very satisfying to use, especially when you upgraded them, and taking out these enemies feels very satisfying.

That isn’t all that this game has going for it though. Specifically for this version of the game, there are plenty of fully animated anime-esque cutscenes, complete with full Japanese voice acting, and these also helped me enjoy the game a lot more then I would have otherwise. It is very impressive for the time, and while I can’t say for sure if the voice acting itself was good or not, it at least helped me enjoy the story more despite it being incredibly generic, so it is doing the job it is meant to do. I haven’t looked into the other versions to know what differences each version has when compared to each other, but I have a good feeling that this is probably the only version with full voice acting and cutscenes animated to this extent, which definitely makes it the best and most enjoyable version amongst the rest.

With that being said, if you don’t get into the game yourself, then that is completely understandable. It is, all in all, a generic action platformer, doing nothing new for the genre despite still providing a fun enough experience. Sure, for the original 1986 release, a lot of these elements could be seen as revolutionary, but for the version I had played, it was made in 1992, and there had been plenty of games that had also done a lot of the things that this game does, while also managing to provide a better experience. Despite that though, I still had a pretty good time with it, and I am definitely going to be playing through the other versions at some point, as well as the rest of the games in this series… despite what kind of content they may contain (more on that much, MUCH later).

Overall, despite not providing too much that would appeal to casual players, I found myself being pleasantly surprised by Valis, being a pretty fun action-platformer that has plenty of charm with its anime cutscenes and voice acting, and making me a fan of the series now. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you are a fan of old-school platformers like me, and while I can’t speak for the quality of the other versions of the game, I can certainly say that the PC-Engine version is a great time. Now, let’s just hope that later games in the series don’t make me regret being a fan of the series now… with that title aside.

Remake #2

Angel_Arle Valis reviews
Part 1: Valis II for PC Engine CD
Part 2: Valis III for PC Engine CD
Bonus: Valis III for Mega Drive
Part 3: Valis IV for PC Engine CD
Part 4: SD Valis for Mega Drive
Part 6: Super Valis: Akaki Tsuki no Otome for Super Famicom
Final Part: Mugen Senshi Valis for Famicom

Most of this series of reviews I’ve done have been about the PC Engine CD games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it in a future review but I have yet to talk about the first game. This is mostly because I wasn’t planning to do the Japanese computer versions and I have already done a review of the Mega Drive version that wasn’t part of this series of reviews. Now it’s finally time for it to shine, this is the finale of the PC Engine games named Mugen Senshi Valis: The Legend of a Fantasm Soldier and was developed by Riot who also did the Mega Drive version of the first. Let’s finally finish these PC Engine CD games.

Well look what we have here, we got a new engine or maybe it’s modified from past games. This surprised me considering Valis 1 on Mega Drive reused 3’s MD engine. You’ll go through stages fighting various enemies, doing platforming and fighting bosses. Yuko’s movement in this one is slower then past games though it never really feels awful to me compared to say Valis III MD. Though if I have to give one complaint, I’m not big on the lag you have from landing after a jump. You can once again slide but there’s two new rules about this move. You cannot damage enemies on startup, you need to wait for Yuko to get out of the first part of the animation for it to have a hitbox. You also can’t use it as an attack on slopes so keep that in mind. The slide is very situational however so it’s not recommended you use it unless you want to speed through a level faster. Yuko also jumps pretty high in this game but because of this, the game lacks the high jump from past games.

Yuko is also back to using different projectile attacks like in Valis II and they can be upgraded up to Level 3. To upgrade one you’ll need to grab the same letter icon as the current one you have, meaning if you have the one that is a B, you need to grab two more for the max level. The B item will give Yuko a simple forward beam with more being added forward and upwards diagonally the more levels you give it. The C item gives you a crescent shaped beam that is powerful and can even fire a small one upwards at its max level. The H item gives the power of homing which lacks in strength but makes it easier to get hits on enemies of any elevation with more shots being added the higher level it is. The A item gives you these slime bubbles to shoot at enemies making for great coverage on the ground but a little hard to hit aerial enemies. The S item grants you a laser like beam that can split into more beams with huge power giving great coverage for enemies in front of you though it comes at the cost of being a pretty rare item to find. There’s also other pickups like hearts to refill health, stars to refill magic and a 1-up that gives another life for Yuko if she passes away.

Magic once again returns and you will earn magic after beating every main boss. Sadly though I hate to tell you all this but I actually failed to really test all of the magic. It seems to be pretty similar to the Mega Drive version of magic with it still having stuff like 3 different screen clear attacks. There’s also ice feathers that can spread and hit anything in the 8 directions it shoots out in. I also remember a fire ring that surrounds you with fire and hits everything that touches it and will eventually disappear. The best one however has to be that barrier you get because it basically lets you take a bunch of hits without losing HP and while you can only use it two times with a full bar, it’s the one you’ll get the most use out of. I think the biggest problem with the magic is it’s hard to really experiment with it when there’s so little refills meaning you don’t want to rely on it constantly. Maybe if they had more of the big stars, I’d be more willing to use them.

Now we have those levels and they are by this point about what you expect but hey that’s not a bad thing. No level in this game really feels awful to me personally and they got a pretty good pace to them not really dragging out at any time. Some could argue they could be a bit longer but for things I’ll go into, it’ll make sense. Levels can also get tricky with their hazards and require some good reflexes but it feels fair for the most part. I do wish it was better at times with dropping from a platform. The enemy placement however is a little much. They really just like to spam enemies at times meaning you won’t have much time to sit back and smell the roses. Thankfully nothing is too obnoxious especially once you learn the game’s level design after a playthrough or two. Though what does annoy me is the respawning because dear god this might be some of the worst I’ve seen. They respawn the moment the screen doesn’t show that area leading to some frustration and some risk taking. Let’s do an example, say there’s an enemy on the wall, you jump to hit it but you fall a bit because the jump is pretty high but because that area you hit the enemy just is barely off screen, it’ll return when you do the jump again. You just can’t take it slow in some cases, you need a new strategy but you also need to be careful because of something else the game does.

In every Valis game, you start the game with full health and when you beat a stage, you start with full health. I know that sounds like something any game should do for the most part. This game doesn’t do that. The moment you begin stage 1, you’ll notice you don’t have full health and instead have only half. You’ll also notice you keep the same amount of health going into another stage. This may sound like a wtf kind of moment but I’ll go over why this is good game design in a minute. This game is also stingy as hell with the big hearts and I can only think of 2 instances of them. Though to give this game some credit, enemies always just deal two hit points of health or at least of all the hits I noticed so small hearts never feel too useless. I still think you should have at least started the game with full health or when you begin a new life like was lowering your level down not good enough?

Bosses have never really been Valis’ strong suit. Here however I’d make a case that this is where bosses peaked for the series. They provide a good challenge in the sense that after you beat one you know next time you can beat them without getting hit. It began to hit me that it’s probably why you don’t start with full health after beating a stage because these boss fights are designed so well to make it possible to never get hit with some practice and I admire that. One thing I’d do after beating a boss was to load a save state and try again but not get hit and it really satisfies me when I do because the no health refill encourages it so much. These bosses even let the slide shine so well as it’s great for dodging attacks though sadly it sucks as an attack. The only issue I have with the bosses is some can be defeated easily by just using that shield magic. Besides that however, this is some good stuff, easily one of the bigger positives I have about the game.

I should also bring up the story. If you have enjoyed this one in the past versions of this game then you’ll love it here as there’s a lot of new cutscenes made for this version of the game and they are still very high quality for the console. While I can’t really understand them sadly, I still always liked the story of the first game and had one of my favorite moments being the scene after Yuko and Reiko fight. Really the only gripe I have with the cutscenes is the really unnecessary bra and panties shots of Yuko in the intro. This game also does the revolutionary idea of letting you skip the damn boss dialogue!! Seriously, it should not have taken 4 games to let me do this! It’s not an amazingly in-depth story as it’s mostly just to get the jewels from the bosses, face the girl you don’t wanna kill, beat the main bad Rogles and then Yuko moves on…until she has to deal with Megas in II. Man, Yuko really never catched a break in her trilogy did she…

This game looks really good for the console with some great looking locations and good uses of color. All the sprites look pretty good for a PC Engine game and even Yuko herself got a whole new set of sprites. Though they really like showing her panties in her animations like jumping which might disgust some people. Still though stuff like the backgrounds for some reason look nice to me, maybe I haven’t been paying attention in past games but they caught my eye in this one. Like I said before, the cutscenes also look pretty good and some of the best for the series. The music is also the usual music you heard in past versions and this is some of the best versions of those songs. While I have a biased love for the Mega Drive OST, stuff like Flash of Sword sound great here. I do have one issue though. For the song “Lonely Soldier” they didn’t add the second verse that was in the Mega Drive version which has always bothered me. The sound effects for the projectiles you send out also sound kind of bad to me. Also idk if this was an emulation problem but the game is a little quiet but the cutscenes aren’t, though it’s probably not like that on real hardware.

This game is such a hard one for me to rate tbh. I in some ways like this more than Valis IV but I really just can’t decide. They both have different problems that keep them from being more than a high 7/10. I’d argue Valis I is more replayable for me personally as it’s something I could see myself replaying in the future. I still think Valis IV might be better though just for its use of multiple characters and it’s better use of magic, while some parts like the shield enemies could be better there, I think the games are really fun with multiple characters. Regardless of score though, I love the work Riot did on this game. Lots of effort was made to make this a good finale for Valis. While there is still one more game left, I sometimes like to see this as a nice send off for the series. If you don’t want to play the game, I’ll at least link the ending song here because I have yet to mention the credits song Miss Blue に微笑みを which was always in Valis I but has now been given amazing vocals really feeling like a farewell and makes all the work to get here feel worth it, it makes me feel happy for getting this far. Give the game a try if it looks interesting to you, it’s a good game even if some small fixes could have made it even better. Farewell PC Engine CD, thanks for all of the good times!