Violet Wisteria

Some time ago the developer of this game used to have a YouTube channel where he talked about obscure Japanese video games and other rarities, it was very informative and presented in an accessible way. So, when he decided to become a game dev, I had the idea to support him in his venture by buying the upcoming game. Unfortunately the final product is not something that I enjoyed as well... it's a puzzle platformer where you have to match the color of your attacks to the enemies and to elements of the environment in order to defeat them and pass the platforming challenges. It would be nice if this were more puzzler than platformer, however the foundation of the game is one of those difficult 80s/90s titles that leave you almost no margin of error. So not only the game is hard in itself, but it becomes even more frustrating with the puzzle element that makes everything clunkier. Not to mention that different attacks are not just mapped to different buttons, but to fighting game-style button and movement combos just to make it even more unintuitive. Even with the tutorial at the beginning and selecting the lowest difficulty possible, the game feels barely playable because of the ro…

More flawed than the Valis series Violet Wisteria draws its inspiration from

This game really needed more time in the oven. It needed to be play tested much more rigorously. The designer was too in love/invested with the 3 elemental rock/paper/scissors mechanics of the game that it completely took away from the immediacy and feel of the game. I would suggest that the developer test the game outside of his social group or fans. This is not a broken game but clearly a lot of the players/testers(community members/fans?) who played the game are giving it a free pass despite all of its issues. And, I'm going to be much more of a Debbie-downer here, but the music... well the music sounds kind of broken. Discordant. I dare say not good. Especially the first stage BGM. For a first attempt I'd say it needs a bit more polish, and maybe a discerning eye to help push it along.

If you want a challenging early era SNES/Super Famicom style action platformer, this is the game for you. It draws a lot of inspiration from the Valis games, but has its own unique twist. This game isn’t for everyone, but if you’re into this style of game, it is a lot of fun. You can tell that a lot of passion went into making this feel like an authentic experience from that time. Would love if there were scanline and color options to make it look more retro.

As a person who has played every single Valis game extensively, this was literally unplayable. The puzzle combat system was so confusing, it completely removed whatever enjoyment I could muster for this game. What a waste of great main character sprite and background design. I wasn't expecting to be blown away, but I also wasn't expecting to be this disappointed.

This a challenging retro style game taking inspiration from Japanese action platformer Valis. I recommend this game only if you're ok with a challenge. If you're like me and thought 2023's Sifu wasn't hard despite being voted hardest game of the year and want to devote yourself to being patient and learning a game's mechanic, get this. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't like action platformers much too. The game's action platformer gimmick is a 3 color mechanic that forces you to change colors to respond to defeat enemies or use them to your advantage. Enemies are killed by their enemy color, and you can boost off enemies using their own color. Hitting the enemies the wrong way will bounce off, which can either be life threatening or necesssary. I had to play the game on easy with color hints on, and as such it made hitting hte wrong color all the more punishing. It never felt like the game was ghosted like ghost and goblins on the NES, but rather my own fault and something to get better at. The tones also fit the era the game harkens back to. Random graphic details like organic stage settings or eyeball are on platforms, blood drips from the ceiling. Music reminds me …