Valdis Story: Abyssal City

[Dr Unne]

Valdis Story is a 2-D Metroidvania game made by very a small indie team. It's quite good. I got in on a Steam sale recently; it's been as low as $3-something but I think it's well worth the $5 or $7 or whatever I paid for it.

The good:
* Graphics - It looks awesome. It's a nice change to play an indie game that's not pixel art. Lots of hand-drawn stuff and very good animations and character artwork.
* Music - It's pretty good. Orchestral and grandiose, lots of violins. http://zackparrish.bandcamp.com/albu...y-abyssal-city
* Complex combat - You have lots of moves: strong/weak attacks, 4 magic spell slots, a dodge move (eventually), plus some other stuff. You have lots of spells that do different things, an kind of elemental system.
* Crafting system - Who doesn't like crafting?
* Atmosphere - It's a kind of dark fantasy world, angels vs. demons. The main character I chose to play as is a jerk, which I always enjoy. "Why does everyone think I'm their errand boy?" after being given yet another fetch quest. The dialog is surprisingly entertaining. There's no flowery fantasy mumbo-jumbo; people talk to each other fairly realistically.
* Characters - You can play as different characters. You can find companions to help you in battle. That's pretty cool.
* Platforming - There are some really clever platforming puzzles requiring precise movement / timing or good use of skills. If you can get the hang of the controls (see below) these are pretty fun. I found it very rewarding to finish some of them.
* Metroidvania goodness - Exploration, finding power-ups, gaining movement skills to let you reach new areas, backtracking, non-linearity... This is what the genre is about, so if you like those things, you'll like this game.

The bad:
* Controls - It takes a while to get used to the controls. For example the default dodge move is Down and then Left/Right shortly after, which I had a LOT of trouble with until I remapped it to a trigger. Casting a spell is done by holding one button down and then pushing a direction on the D-pad, which I still fumble over, after 6 hours. Sometimes you stick to walls or do a wall jump when you don't want to. Combat requires a LOT of coordination. You're going to use pretty much every button on your controller. (I can't imagine this game being playable with keyboard, but what do I know?)
* Difficulty: The difficulty might put some people off. I'm playing on the second-easiest difficulty and getting wrecked pretty frequently. And there are two more difficult modes that I'm afraid to go near. That's what I like though.
* Save points - You can only save in designated areas. I don't like that system a lot. On the plus side, if you die, you get to Retry from the room you died in, with full health, so it's not a huge deal. Unless you get stuck. Which brings me to...
* Sometimes you're wandering through an unknown area and suddenly you're fighting a boss or mini-boss with no warning. And if you die you can retry it, but it spawns you in the boss room with the door locked. And if you can't kill the boss (e.g. you're too low-level) you have to reload from your last save point, which might be a half hour ago. I raged a few times over this. (Magus... )
* Menu UI - Small gripe, but the menu UI is very bad. Changing armor/spells takes about 700 button presses. You don't need to use the menu all that often and the game is paused while you do, so whatever.

I haven't beaten this game yet, but I'm well on my way. Have you played it? If not, you should grab it if you see it on sale. If so, did you like it?

[Dr Unne]

Seems like no one cares about this game. But I'm streaming it now. I failed to beat it on my first two playthroughs, maybe 3rd time is a charm. http://twitch.tv/cdaddr

[Vyk]

It's actually the second or third incarnation of its kind. I played the first one, and what I believe was a tech demo for the second one. Very metroidvania. I eventually bought the full release on Steam for cheap, and it was totally worth it. Didn't beat it. But super enjoyed what I played of it. Very much like Dust: Elysian Tail or whatever

[Dr Unne]

So I finally beat this game (on stream!). This was on my third playthrough of the game.

My first playthrough, I didn't know how to build my character, so I threw points randomly into stats, and by the end I was so sucky I couldn't do anything. My second playthrough I had a clear goal of making an all-AGI build with the bow/dagger and with the Bloodletter Crest that drains life on critical hits. I didn't realize that this thing was only sold in one place, and that at a certain point in the game, something stupid happens so you can't get the item any moreEVERYONE IN ISHK FREAKING DIES INCLUDING THE PERSON WHO SELLS IT.

I admit I was raging pretty hard when my build was suddenly garbage because I passed a point of no return on getting an item. Thankfully the game is <10 hours so I just played it through again. I think I killed the final boss on my first try. And got an F rank on him, as the game's final twist of the dagger. This is the kind of game I wanted to beat out of spite as much as out of fun. Though it was fun, no arguing that.

Pretty sure this game is in my top 3 Metroidvania games of all time, and that's saying a lot.