Valdis Story: Abyssal City

I wishlisted and eventually bought this game on sale years back because the artstyle looked neat and reminded me of eastern web games from the 2000s! Though I didn't get around to finally playing it until this year. I will say... Your mileage on the visuals may vary. I personally adore the look of it and the character designs, but it may look a bit cheap to you, and I'd fully understand it. But either way you should look past that because this is still an EXCELLENT game. [b]Valdis Story[/b] is an old-ass indie Metroidvania from 2013. Apparently it was a Kickstarter project? Though I missed that whole ordeal since at the time I was just a kid who didn't even know what a Kickstarter was. It was developed by... I think 4 people or so? Which kind of shows in some aspects, it's not the most visually polished game and there's some little bits of jank here and there. But it's GENUINELY worth playing just for the gameplay and the insane amounts of worldbuilding. So, the [b]gameplay[/b]! You know what a Metroidvania is like if you're here, I'm not gonna explain that. But I [i]am[/i] going to explain the combat, because this might as well be a DMC game in 2D. You have a light attack butto…

Valdis Story is a decent metroidvania. Reasons you might want to avoid this game: - World navigation is slow and tedious. Not a lot of fast travels lost of long distance walking. -No quest log so good luck figuring out where you need to go or what to do. - Enemies can air juggle you. -Most, if not all, enemy melee attacks push you back a bit. Becomes very annoying when you're close to the edge. Guard attack. Don't lose hp, but get pushed down the ledge and now you have to go all the way back up. Repeat this 5 times and you'll rage quit fast. -Story is a bit boring. Found myself skipping everything. Also not a big fan plain text based dialog. If the dialog is boring I'll skip it. Sorry not sorry

One of the best metroidvanias around.

A grossly overlooked piece of metroidvania history. This was probably the first of the 2D metroidvanias to emphasize DMC-style combos and other action heavy elements that wouldn't become popular in the genre until later games like Hollow Knight got released. Adding to the crazy is that it's actually a sequel to a cancelled game which had a playable demo released back in 2011. Scoring it as a game I will say it holds up. Action is fluid, art style is amazing, story is actually pretty interesting, the soundtrack couldn't be more fitting, and it knows when to end. One thing that really stands out to me even after playing other action heavy metroidvanias is the bossfights. Some of them are actually very challenging. Not to spoil too much but there's also a couple moments in here where choosing to do something can permanently change something for the remainder of a playthrough.

https://youtu.be/1zFbkh62d_8 Sluggish animation barks and recovery makes input feel unresponsive which is the opposite one desires for a action game.

I keep coming back to this game, its a metroivania with the most replayability, coupled with a great soundtrack, and incredible controls. Best dodge cancel out any game as well. Hope we get a sequel.