Buy Valdis Story: Abyssal City

Ever since I got into ametuer game design myself about 5-6 years ago, I always wanted to make a game that combined some of my favourite genres: Platformer, Action/Adventure and RPG (with a little touch of Fighting a la Smash Bros). Monsters, bosses, weapons, party members, stores, collectibles and TIGHT combat controls. Obviously, since games are hard to make (let along by yourself) that never happened. But I would happen across Valdis Story, which I think is the closest I've ever seen a game be to my "dream game." Side scrolling action platforming at its finest since Symphony of the Night! If you liked SoTN or any of the other Metroidvania games (including Metroid itself) you will highly enjoy this game just like I did. Fun bosses, high skill cap and rewards the skilled with bonouses from bosses encouraging you to learn the bosses' patterns and improve yourself. After you beat the game your first time, why not play again? On a harder difficulty? And its not just the numbers that get harder with the difficulties either, some bosses mechanically change in terms of how they are fought (albiet minorly, but still) and the best part is, THIS GAME ISNT EVEN DONE YET. There is more to come! It's good enough as it is, but knowing that there are other characters and items and possibly bosses planned in future updates just makes me rock hard. GG EndlessFluff. You did good.

In summary, this game is so much fun and so impressive that I can't recommend it more.

I played through this game once, and MAN did I love it. There are so many different styles of play: rush in like a barbarian, use melee attacks, take time to plan things out, use magic, attack from a distance, run away in fear, or any combination of those. The gameplay is so well made and the design so spot-on that there was never a dull moment. There's quite a lot of optional paths and bosses too. I really like how whether or not you defeat certain optional bosses determines what happens later in the game. Some of them change the story, some change the ending, and some even change how future bosses act. Plus the bosses were all unique and unbelieveably intense.
It's a really pretty game, too.

And don't even get me started on the music.
Ooooh god, the music. It's so good. I legitimately feel that this game has my favorite soundtrack of any game I've ever played. Zack Parish is now my God. I've never bought a video game soundtrack before, but I HAVE to buy this one.

I did notice that if there was more than one or two lasers on-screen at once, and during the final boss, I would experience framerate issues, but I also had a recording software running, and I'm sure everything would've been smooth if I hadn't been recording. In the end, I turned down the graphical settings for the final boss (which is a super intense experience and takes a little while to beat) and everything was fine. I have a really hard time saying that this is any fault of the game, but I wouldn't know.

As I mentioned above, I did play through this game on YouTube (youtube.com/Frozelar), if you'd like to see some more gameplay before buying it. I really hate to self-advertise but maybe it'll give people a better idea of just how great the game is before they buy it.
Easily my favorite Let's Play of all time. Looking forward to playing through it again. And possibly again and again and again.

What do you get when you combine a responsive hack 'n slash with Metroidvania? Prepare for hours of exploring the Sunken City while using sick combos to clear challenging boss fights and frustrating puzzles. Controller is recommended.

Fantastic, well polished, feature rich Metroidvania.
Deep, satisfying combat (perhaps the best in any game of this kind that I am aware of); varied branching upgrade paths which allow for different , focused builds, and thus encourage replay value.
Incredible soundtrack.
Basically, this came puts Konami to shame for not making a properly updated Vania game in years.
Well done, devs!

an rpg platformer that worth buying because:
pros:
+challenging boss battles.
+replayability value.
+random humor.
+balanced mechanics.
+two characters with different move set.
+catchy soundtracks.
cons:
-no in-game guide for quests since the story path is not clear.
-opening crystal and button doors can be tedious.
-you have to backtrack alot to finish the game 100%.

The “Metroidvania” platformer enjoyed its heyday some 15-20 years ago when Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ruled the roost, and eventually found their names lent to the genre’s title. While many games since then have borrowed the tried-and-true mechanics of these classics, Valdis Story: Abyssal City is one that does so while also re-creating the aesthetic of the old-school consoles — its colorful art style would feel right at home on a PlayStation. The hours of engaging gameplay at hand will especially satisfy the nostalgic.

In a world where demons and angels are at war, Wyatt and his crew set sail in order to track down his missing father. During the voyage, their ship is attacked by creatures from below and sunk. Beneath the water's surface, they find a slowly dying ancient city under constant attack from angels, demons and ferals. Separated from his crew, Wyatt must now reunite them while continuing the search for his father. During his journey, he discovers lost secrets and unravels mysteries surrounding him and his friends.

As with its classic inspirations, the bulk of the gameplay in Valdis Story is spent battling enemies and exploring the side-scrolling landscapes. The satisfaction of a good Metroidvania game is intact; you’ll come across many inaccessible doors and return to them hours later with a means of entry, filled with anticipation of what could be behind them. The location of your next task is not always obvious, with a vague line of text serving as the only clue. This lack of hand-holding might frustrate in other games, but it’s a boon to Valdis Story, as revisiting areas to more thoroughly explore only enhances the whole. Valdis Story rewards those who go out of their way to explore; a vital aspect of this Metroidvania-style game. As you leap around the beautiful 2D world, you acquire new equipment and spells that allow access to previously unreachable locations. Summoning ice pillars as temporary platforms, short-range teleports and wall-kicking are just a few of the abilities needed to fully traverse the city. Dozens of hidden items, chests and crew members wait to be found, some of which are extraordinarily hard to find, making it sweeter when you do.

There’s a solid progression system in place, injecting RPG aspects to great effect. Experience is earned through defeating enemies, with a substantial amount of unlockable skills and stat upgrades to choose from as each new player level is achieved. There’s even somewhat of a crafting mechanic — materials collected in the wild can be provided to vendors to increase the effectiveness of armor and weapons, or create new ones outright.

The combat in Valdis Story is fun. Stringing together combos with the aid of unlocked skills is enchanting from start to finish. Magic plays a major part, serving as a gratifying complement to melee swordplay. By the game’s conclusion, you’ll have access to a generous amount of spells ranging from elemental attacks, to stat buffs, to abilities that help you reach otherwise-inaccessible areas. The depth of combat comes to light most effectively while entrenched in the numerous boss fights. Some of these tests are quite stiff, particularly later in the game. Success comes through experimentation, practicing different spells on different bosses, and even exploring the area where the battle takes place. But if nothing’s working out, doubling back for some old-fashioned level grinding goes a long way.

Combat flows smoothly, and stringing attacks together is fast-paced and exciting. The keyboard controls are clunky, but they can be rearranged or a gamepad can be used. You can execute short-ranged dashes that allow you to dodge and move past foes, or employ more than twenty spells to deal damage, heal, boost your own abilities or reach new places. The sound effects that accompany them are appropriate, though a little artificial-sounding at times. Nevertheless, spell diversity is outstanding, and there are dozens of ways to approach combat in any particular battle. Often, you will need to mix up your strategy as some enemies focus on speed and manoeuvrability, while others are heavily armoured or stand back and shoot. There's a solid variety of foes, though their design relies on palette-swapping as the game progresses. On level up you can assign stat points and choose to focus on magic, melee or a mix of the two. It's a fun, flexible system that provides great variety on additional plays.

There are plenty of bosses to test your skills against, both story-based and optional, and you'll always need to be at your best to beat them. Monstrous armoured angels and sleek, agile demons are just a few you'll encounter. Different bosses require you to take down shields, stay above poisonous gas, navigate precarious platforms, destroy healing devices and even beat a time limit in order to destroy them. There's terrific variety, and, even on the normal difficulty setting, they are a real challenge to defeat. Once you do so, you are given a rank based on how soundly you thrashed them, and may be rewarded with extra experience or even additional stat or skill points to assign. At the end of the game you receive an overall ranking too, so completionists have a huge task ahead of them.

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. One play through, as Wyatt, takes about 10-15 hours, so there's at least twice that to play as Reina and collect all the hidden items. Throw in Gilda and Vladyn, and you can double that play time again! As long as you're prepared for a challenging game, I can't recommend Valdis Story enough.


Be sure to check out Nerd House Gaming for more reviews!

This is an action-platformer in the style of new Castlevania games.

There are a few key differences, however. Unlike Castlevania, this game emphasizes quality over quantity when it comes to item drops and spells. Enemies drop crafting ingredients, not gold or items. Each character has only a handful of armors and weapons, and every one caters to a different playstyle and has multiple upgrade levels.

The gameplay is more akin to a fighting game (especially in boss battles). There is a heavy emphasis on dodging over blocking. Striking enemies at opportune moments is much more important than simply hitting them as much as possible. You do have a revive built into your abilities, but you are still fairly fragile.

This is much easier to play than a fighting game, though. Your skill cancel is a simple press of the down key, and dodging is just pressing left or right after that. Your assist has its own button, and spell casting and super mode have modifier keys. The game offers some tutorials, but muscle memory is the only real stumbling block here.

Boss battles emphasize pattern recognition and reaction time over button mashing, and since your skill cancels have a short cooldown, spamming will get you nowhere. Killing a tricky boss after spending four lives learning their patterns is a very satisfying feeling. Retries are unlimited and place you right in the boss room, but its still crucial to keep your cool and respond to attacks carefully.

There are downsides, of course. Whenever the game chooses to focus on platforming over combat, it becomes significantly less fun. Thankfully most of the timed platforming challenges are optional, though you will be missing out on a few items if you ignore them, as I chose to.

Like any non-linear game, there are times when you will be unsure where to go, or where you accidentally miss important things because the game doesn't tell you enough. This is compounded by some occasionally suspect level design, particularly areas where it's easy to fall down several rooms and be forced to repeat an area, or where enemies can stunlock or toss you easily.

The map and menus are rather bland. While it has some nice sprite work, the graphics options don't really give everything room to shine. It also doesn't scale well, so if (like me) you have a fairly large monitor and play in fullscreen, the upscaling is very noticable.

The story is nothing exciting. Like Castlevania, it's mostly relegated to text boxes whenever you find a new area or kill a boss. It has a few engaging reveals and some pleasant backstory here and there, but the story is not a reason alone to play this game.

Ultimately, this game doesn't hold your hand, but it has a reasonable difficulty curve and skill floor. It expects you to work a little bit for your victories, but it is neither impossible nor unfair. If you like action platformers and skill-based combat, look no further. Just be sure to use a controller.

This game was a hidden gem that I bought during one of the holiday sales last year I think. Man o man, was I surprised to find such a fun and charming game.

Taking from the Metroidvania style of layout and combat similar to that of devil may cry, this game makes out for some fun times. The music is great, the combat is great, the platforming is great...for the most part. I say the most part because there are some tedious level designs that require a lot of attempts due to nearly impossible requirements in speed and platforming. Other than that the game is amazing and easily has become one of my most fun and memorable games of all.

Given that there are two charcters, both with their own stories, the game begs for a second playthrough; which I am working on now :D

I sincerely hope the developers decide to make a sequel or another game in this same style.



Easily a 8.5/10

Update: After finishing the game with Reina and playing throught the new content, I have to say, STUN LOCKING is a HUGE problem with this game!!!!!!!! It is frustrating an infuriating!!!! I still stand by that this is an over all great game but the two GLARING flaws in the game design are some of the platforming and definitly the stun locking that some of the enemies put you in and definitely the eye of Myrgato and the final boss.......wow, I have never been more frustrated with a game. I just hope the sequel, if there is one, will not fall victim to these design flaws.

Fantastic metroidvania/brawler style game. Definitely one of the best I've played. Combat is very rewarding, level design and art is great throughout, and bosses are very well put together. Bosses also have a rating system, and a rather forgiving retry system (it hurts your rating to restart a boss fight - but ratings have a very slight affect on the game, and it is really only their as a slight punishment - I thought this was a fantastic compromise between challenge and hand-holding).

Honestly my only critique is the games platforming sections. While controls feel great for combat - I had a harder time when trying to navigate tiny floating platforms. It feels almost as if there is a slight input delay - that lends itself well to the combo based combat, but not so to navigating an obstacle course.

To make this review simple and not too analytical, this game is fantastic. It is at times very, very frustrating, but it is a challenging game. You will eventually get past parts through trial and error and will have to push yourself to get better. I am glad I picked this up. There are some optional boss fights, so if it sometimes seems almost impossible, just level up some more or progress through the story and try later. Really, just don't give up on this game. I have rage quitted once, and have wanted to many times before but had not. Regardless I keep coming back to the game. The art design is wonderful and it is a pleasure to find new parts of the world. I don't see enough games like this. Pick it up if you are up for a challenging adventure with many bosses.

Really good platformer/slasher. Feels like Dark Souls 2D edition, if you play on hard (and you probably should). Bonus points for sick OST.

An excellent metroidvania type game that has a few flaws but is overall a great experience with plenty of replay value. I strongly recommend it if you are a fan of the genre. The leveling caps at 20 which came as a surprise but it is possible to respec stats with a hidden npc.

Gameplay:

Fighting system:
The fighting system takes a few pages from "spectacle fighters". The combo system features light and heavy attacks, juggles, aerial attacks, spells, assist characters, focus mode and focus mode finishers, blocking, parrying and skill canceling that enables you to dodge and/or continue to most of the available actions. It works really well for the most part, but mixing spells into the fight is sometimes bit of a challenge.

Spells are activated by pressing a spell button and then a direction to activate the chosen spell or just pressing in the air to use the aerial spell, which works pretty well in most situations, but the focus mode is also activated by pressing the spell button and then light attack, which makes it pretty easy to activate by accident. It is also bound to a trigger on 360 controller by default and personally i'd prefer it being in a face button, but that makes activating focus mode insanely awkward.


Exploration:
Game features the standard style of metroidvania maps, each area has its separate map that shows if the room has a locked door and what type of lock it is, which rooms connect, the basic stuff. Exploration is rewarded with new armors, materials and crew members that can teach you focus skills, assist, strenghten spells or craft 2 of the 4 available weapons. Different characters get different weapons and have different starting spells that are unique to characters. Most of the areas are locked until you get equipment and spells that allow further exploration and it has a good feel as there are lots of things to find.

Most of the armors are locked in a kind of platform challenge rooms and here the game stumbles a little as the platforming aspect has some issues. The control feels a bit floaty and its easy to overshoot your target, there are also some issues with collision detection as it's difficult to jump to narrow corridors and sometimes it feels that the landing is a little slippery. The character can grab a ledge if you press towards it, and will climb up if you press up and it is very sensitive. If you press away from the ledge you're hanging from, the character jumps. There are a few parts where you have to do that quickly and it's easy to mess up.

The game has a few timed events that can be missed and they have various effects to the gameworld

Visuals:
The animation and spriteart is simply beautiful. It is simple enough that you can see what happens on screen and detailed enough to still look very good. There is a decent variety of environments and each has their own identity. Some bosses look simply amazing. Character portraits and cutscenes/storyboards are heavily stylized but personally i feel they are weakest part of the art.

Audio:
The music is really beautiful and fits the overall aesthetic and situations really well. Sound effects wary from good to irritating, there are few sound effects that just sound bad, but for the most part, they are serviceable.

The story:
The game begins by the protagonist falling from the sky into a forgotten land. where he finds demons, angels and ferals fighting and a tribe of humans trying to survive. The humans who live in this land have white hair for undisclosed reason and they distrust the protagonist who they fear could be a demon or angel because the protagonists hair is not white. It sounds better in the game. From there on the player must earn their trust by helping them survive and also try to find his/her crew that fell in different places in this land. The game fills in backstory as it progresses and it's allright, but not very memorable.

Enemy and boss designs:
There is a decent variety of enemies that have distinct behaviours and they encourage and sometimes require player to use different tactics like prioritizing to a larger enemy that can resurrect smaller enemies, breaking shields with magical attacks or dashing through a tanking enemy with invulnerable shield. They are pretty easy when fought alone but can be tricky in groups.

Bosses are for the most part unique and have different abilities, there are a few humanoids that have player like abilities, but most bosses behave very differently from player character. Almost all bosses become stronger the lower health they get to and you need different strategies to survive. The end result is ranked and if you did well enough you get a stat boost. Some bosses have gimmicks like healing or needing to damage different parts in predetermined order and they are, for the most part interesting.

I have to give a mention for the final boss however as it is not very fun. If you have not prepared well enough, it can became an endless dps race against it's healing ability and your ability to deal damage as there is only a set amount of damage you can deal during the phase it is vulnerable. It is a cycle of trying to activate the damaging phase by damaging it's shield while the boss tries to heal, if the boss heals it repairs the shield nullifying the progress toward the damaging phase. The boss looks epic but can be very frustrating to fight with.

IF YOU LIKE ACTION PLATFORMERS WITH RPG ELEMNTS (METROID , CASTLEVANIA, ZELDA II) BUY THIS GAME. I WOULD ALSO SUGGEST PLAYING THIS GAME WITH AN X-BOX CONTROLLER BECAUSE IT DEMANDS PRECISE INPUTS.

This game is very simmilar to metroid and castlevania. it follows the same baisic principles of using power-ups to to traverse new areas. The rpg meachanics allow plenty of character customization. The game's world is interesting, but the cliff hanger ending is mediocre at best. The soundtrack is absolutely divine. (hehe) The orchestrated pieces and a lot of epic flare to this already stylish game. The game took me about 8 hours to complete, but you can double that time if you beat the game with both of the playable characters.

This game.. man, where do I begin?
This is my favorite side scrolling RPG of all time. The fighting is intense, the boss fights are epic, and the artwork is really cool too. I really want to see more by this dev, especially if they keep turning out games of this quality.

Great metroidvania platformer with some very interesting mechanics, great combat and quite well thought bosses. Recommended for people that likes some challenge, especially on the hardest difficulty.

Super fun game. My kids and I love it. Hope the devs put out another or similar side scrolling Metroidvania. A lot of fun and the artwork is great.

Valdis Story is a solid, metroidvania RPG with fast enjoyable combat that, while short, offers plenty of replayability and room for exploration. Valdis Story is probably one of the best of it's genre that I have played, so I would recommend giving it a chance. TLDR at the bottom, for those who aren't looking for the specifics.

Valdis Story has tight melee centric, fighter-esque gameplay, uncharacteristic of what you might expect of the genre. There are 2 basic attack buttons, light and heavy, as well as a button toggle for magic with several directional options to change which spell you are using, and assist characters who can help you chain combos together or provide useful secondary effects. Skill cancels (dodges) and parries become available later on for the purpose of damage mitigation or as additional offensive tools. Combat is easy to learn and hard to master, with grades awarded based on performance on boss fights and numerous rewards for good play.

Valdis Story has two characters, Wyatt and Reina, who both have 3 different weapons each (not including barehanded combat) and several supported playstyles and builds each, based on 4 stats. (Luck, Str, Agi, Int) Each character has 3 different skill trees that you can use to customize the character to your gear and intended playstyle. Wyatt is a very straightforward fighter that can be anywhere from a pure brawler, to an assassin or a spellsword. Reina is a bit faster and weaker than Wyatt, and has to rely more on combinations of magic and attacks early on but can later become anywhere from a powerful mage, to a lightning fast brawler lategame.

Valdis Story is also an rpg as much as it is a metroidvania, there are many pieces of interesting gear scattered around behind unforgiving timed puzzles that you may end up running through the game a few times to try incorporating into a new build. Some cons to the game are that it is perhaps a little melee centric, that some bosses and timed puzzles are rather unforgiving on your first or second time around and that there is no world map, though like Dark Souls the world is small and interconnected and you will eventually memorize where everything is.

While not relevant at the time of this review, there are two characters planned to be released later which may extend the lifetime of this game later on. I also feel that it would be selling the game short to not mention the excellent soundtrack it has going for it.

TLDR: I strongly recommend you play this game if you are a perfectionist, or enjoy metroidvanias. You would really be doing yourself a disservice to pass on this game if you like either of it's main genres.

Pros:

1. Great soundtrack. Seriously, it's fantastic.
   
2. Different characters, each with a different playstyle.
   
3. 3 different skill trees to choose from. Allows variation between playthroughs.
   
4. Very difficult optional bosses to complete.
   
5. Intereting storyline.

Cons:

1. Developers have been taking a very long time to release to last 2 characters to the story. They promised these when the game was released in 2013. A year later, neither have been released.
   
2. Relatively short game.

I would definitely suggest this game to anyone on the edge about it. Really fun combat, interesting storyline, great soundtrack. And although the developers have been taking a while to release the last 2 characters to the story, it's still a great play.

I probably jumped the gun with my previous negative review, as I was playing on Veteran difficulty and got angry at an area where I couldn't turn back and lost my health potions before a really hard boss. I played Veteran because found Hard a bit too easy when I played it, but that is because I didn't play against the bosses yet. In retrospect, I should have played on Hard, but hard seemed too easy at the time and the game eventually fustrated me to an instant uninstall.

Realistically, Valdis Story is probably one of the better Metroidvania for purchase on Steam, ot at least the closest game to the 2D "semi-difficult SOTN-Style" Castlevanias outside of the Rogue-lite Rogue Legacy and colorful and slightly easy and very short Guacamelee.

The combat is a mix of being great due to combos and magic, and fustrating due to the skill cancel and enemy/boss attacks that can stun-lock you and drain tons of health.

-The skill cancel allows you to dodge or drop quickly while in mid-air by pressing down, and then the ability to dodge if you press left or right after activation. This key mapping is fustrating in platforming as you accidentally may press down on your game pad and is cumbersome in combat, but at least it is remappable to alleviate some fustration.

-I like the fact that the same soul can be mapped to different directions Smash Bros style to offer you different magic abilities, but I have many times accidentally used Smite (Dark Magic Button + Right) while after making a Platform (Ice Magic Button + Down)

-I eventually unlocked a Team Assist attack, much like Marvel Vs Capcom 2, but the Assist was weak and had a 10 second cooldown, and it sometimes misses - I was better off using normal attacks.

-While combo's are cool, i'll admit that I miss the combat of Castlevania's where the game was about managing your "single attack press" and avoiding hits which caused knock back with temporary invincibility, but not stun-locks into combo barrages.

Perhaps in the future I will reinstall when I'm in the mood for a Metroidvania again and play on a lower difficulty. I stopped at the Guardian Temple which is where I became completely annoyed, though it looks like I was relatively far into the game. I recommend looking at a few negative reviews before you Add to Cart, though if you play at Normal Difficulty and are decent at this style of game, then you may enjoy it..provided you remember to remap your skill cancel key.

I played a few hours of this game and can already tell that this is a superb metroidvania game. As a devote fan of the classic Super Metroid I love how this game dosen't hold your hand making you play through tutorials it simply drops you into the action. From the start they don't limit your access to the games mechanics making the experience of playing/exploring very enjoyable.

If you like action platformers definately give this a try!