Valdis Story: Abyssal City (PC, 2013)
Graphics-8 Sound-8 Control-7 Challenge-7/8* Story-6
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7.5/8.5* Fun-7.5 Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7.5
*Getting all S ranks
+
Start out with ledge clinging and eight different spells (Wyatt)
Spell slot system (can switch between light and dark spells for four slots - each is triggered with a button press and a direction or in mid-air)
Manual attribute and skill point allocation when leveling up (four attributes (strength, agility (affects crit chance and focus mode duration rather than speed or evasion and "to hit" rolls which don't exist here), intelligence, luck), three skill trees w/ three sub categories each - combat/defense/magic themed). Strategic element in finding synergies between skills, equipment and attributes (Diablo 2) as well as picking accessories since these all have buff and debuffs attached
Four different playable chars with different playstyles (Wyatt - weapons, Reina - punches and kicks, Gilda - magic-based attacks+start with double jump but a third attack replaces blocking, Vladyn - starts with a gun; have to unlock the last two). One of the characters starts in a different area (vladyn starts in Hrukk/the second town) and one starts with a double jump (gilda)
Some interesting abilities (create one ice platform at a time on the ground which lets you reach higher/further (similar to Solomon's Key or Wonder Boy 3, can also block projectiles and get you past some fire barriers), invisibility - can be combined with stealth attacks for high damage, pull yourself towards an enemy - mid-air thunder spell, pull an enemy towards you - sideways thunder spell (could've been aimable though as the other one auto-aims), horizontal teleport with the black hole spell - kinda underused though you can use it more if you do the palace area after the ziggurat one)
Skippable cutscenes
Mini-map (hold L1 to show; shows basic room layout with exits and which room you're currently in, marks save points outside of towns, towns and color codes rooms with a locked door in them (check the map screen in the menu for explanations), doesn't show adjacent areas to the one you're in). The map screen also shows the exploration completion rate per area (but not item collecting completion rate)
No contact damage (you also push regular enemies slowly if moving into them)
Nice animation overall (no dialogue portrait animation)
Difficulty options (Normal-God Slayer - four modes, no easy mode; on harder modes the later versions of enemies are introduced earlier and they have new moves+different attack patterns)
Auto-revive items (life potions - Wonder Boy 3/Zelda 3, placed items in the world). There's also an equivalent for MP - can't set this to not auto-use?
Block by default (only stops regular attacks until you upgrade your mana key stone) and enemies can also block. Some ways into the game you can upgrade it to a parry which will stun an enemy if timed right (enemies can also do this). You also gain dodge and dash dodge moves early on ("skill cancel", some cooldown on these but can get up to four charges to use in a row)
Pretty good combo system (fast and strong attacks (strong attacks break through the blocking of regular enemies but not stronger ones), 4 hits in a row by default if you combine fast and strong attacks or use only strong attacks - can be extended by 2, there's also a multiplier which increases as long as you don't get hit and too much time doesn't pass between successful hits (affects focus point gain, exp gain and combat score during boss fights) - can combine melee attacks with magic and assists here)
Ranking system for boss fights (you're graded in 3 categories (time, style=damage taken and if the attacks were slow or not+combo multiplier achieved and using varied attacks*, amount of healing potions used), gain better rewards with higher ranks, two Ss and one A counts as an overall S as long as you didn't use a healing potion)
Focus feature (increases AP and lets you perform a finisher move with a simple button combo, increased by raising the combo multiplier+killing enemies+getting hit)
Assist move (can call on a found crew member NPC to perform a move during combat - similar to X-Men (MD) and Capcom's X vs. Y series, about 7 seconds long cooldown). One of the assists summons an ally to fight alongside the player (reina can even freeze bosses). Use-based leveling of these attacks
Retry option after dying to a boss (if you survived but got a bad rank you'll have to quit the game and select retry from the main menu instead)
Some decent puzzles (timed gates, platform creation, some platforming puzzles where you use the wall jump after dropping down, spatial awareness in the palace)
Some interesting level gimmicks (slow health drain in a couple of areas, poison emitting machines that can be destroyed in the lab, enemies that make nearby enemies invincible)
Good bosses overall (pretty intense and the intensity escalates when they're near death (sometimes the pattern also changes), they tend to summon enemies or other hazards, vs Dhistahn in the sewers you can break the pipes to raise the water and make him easier to see while he's invisible (the bleed status effect also helps), )
Upgradeable gear and spells (weapons=4 levels (these also have basic upgrade trees), armor=5 levels, magic=3 levels)
Some mini-bosses
Toggle for displaying your current rankings during a boss fight
Enemies can accidentally hit each other (systemic element)
Some new enemies appear when revisiting certain areas and some older ones gain new moves. Some new bosses also appear
Some scripted events where you meet and fight alongside NPCs (most NPCs stand in one spot in towns however and so do most of the crew members you find while exploring)
The floating dog (joke NPC and one armed bandit-style assist)
Good mobility after getting the double jump (around mid-game) and a couple of dash/dodge charges
Block counter skill (counter attack if you time your blocking right)
Some minor skips (a few by casting a spell in mid-air right after wall jumping to reach high/long enough to grab ledges you otherwise couldn't, one in the temple using an ice platform to skip a timing challenge, can get the mana stone in the hallow early with damage boosting; more and more major ones with glitches)
Four optional bosses (some of them are among the hardest in the game)
+/-
Pretty non-linear structure after a certain point (opens up after reaching the third town - can explore two different areas at this point (temple, sewers; can enter "the pit" but not explore most of it until after engineer's palace - just a small area with an optional boss in it as well) and if you do the temple first you can then explore the mines which gives access to ziggurat via the demon key or you can get the angel key in the sewers and then go to engineer's palace (or you can go to the lower central skyway though it's pretty tough), can go to the laboratory after the mines, can backtrack to face some optional bosses and to get items and crew member NPCs with new abilities, can choose when to sidetrack for the yeti boss but you're supposed to do it before getting to Ishk/town 3 (see missables); single entry points to some areas (hall of the fallen, guardian temple, ziggurat, the sanctuary))
Save points (about one per area, one slot per game, these also refill your potions). Shows current level, gear and selected assist, completion rate, time taken and current location
MP regen (starts off kinda slow but can be upgraded). Can also gain HP regen as a skill
Can quick travel between 3 towns (there's no town portal item or spell though so there's still some backtracking)
Can jump cancel out of a fast sword swing however you'll automatically perform a jump attack which makes you less maneuverable in mid-air (can't jump cancel out of a spell casting). You're instead supposed to use the skill cancel ability, which is also a dodge move
If you mash the attack button then a sword swing will be executed for each button press rather than having to time presses according to the animations (which are relatively slow)
Can't use a spell triggered with "R2+l/r" on the d-pad while in mid-air
Automatically cling to ledges if pressing towards them - generally good but occasionally gets in the way when doing a timed gate challenge due to how some rooms are laid out
The second swing in a combo reaches further than the first - minor issue when jumping upwards and attacking but otherwise it generally isn't since you also step forward with each swing and there's no contact damage
Stomping doesn't affect enemies
Shorter default combo if you only use fast attacks (3 hits)
Can't escape from boss fights
It's better to specialize in 2 attributes/main stats rather than making an all-rounder build
Jumping is a bit faster than running (dashing also doesn't affect horizontal speed or jump length)
The Luck stat isn't properly explained in text in-game but you can see most of its effects on your base stats (it also raises drop rates)
Basic crafting (only way to buy items is trading in lesser items for them - no money, leads to some grinding at times if you want certain gear or items)
There's also a Final Combat Rank for a couple of achievements and it's affected by the number of retries used for bosses
Can't repeatedly wall jump to climb the same wall
Skillful dodging doesn't factor into style points when it comes to boss rank (not taking damage does though) so it's sometimes better to learn a boss's pattern and try to optimize your damage output since time taken is also important
Some movement delay after the third hit in a sword combo - not before the third hit
Some nods to the FF series in the OST
Two escape sequences (after beating the crystal mines boss and before the final one)
Can't enter background doors
Can respec your skills and attributes at the first town (east of it) but it costs materials to do so and some of them are rare
No upwards melee attack as Wyatt (can use a certain assist to hit flying enemies or ones climbing on the ceiling)
The cooldown on dashing and dodging is delayed if you start a combo (as soon as you hit an enemy - if you make combos without hitting anything it has no effect on the cooldown)
Subsequent skill cancel/dodge cooldown timers trigger after the previous one has finished recharging (if you dashed three times in a row quickly then it still takes the same amount of time for the other ones to recharge)
Sometimes randomized enemy spawning in some rooms (skyway area)
Relatively few ability gates (mostly locked doors, some abilities used like keys to progress such as thunder to activate the spare core and (optional?) fire to unfreeze one NPC)
Most skills simply affect stats (such as critical hit success rate) but there are various exceptions (wyatt, reina has some of these as well as variations on some and some new ones): tenacity - increase attack damage with 4+ hit combos, combo expert adds one more attack to your combo, blade shred - bleed/poison-like effect which also lets you see invisible enemies, ambush - 100% crit chance when attacking from stealth (shadow walk spell), hunter's bounty - killing blow recovers skill cancel/dodge charge, assassin - run while stealthed, parry - block at the right moment to stagger enemy+counter attack, HP regen, fortify - parry yields a partial temporary shield, swift steps - dash dodge an attack to recover skill cancel/dodge charge, null shield - absorb one enemy spell and convert to MP, MP and HP steal skills, judgement and saint - killing blow recovers MP and HP respectively, holy order and black blessing - chance to cast these on hit
Bosses are a lot harder than the other enemies for the most part
The mines look basically the same when revisiting them after the cave in
Cool but overly drawn out final boss battle (climb its tentacles to hit it in the face and knock bomb orbs into it while it's weakened while also fighting off enemies and avoiding freezing; very hard to get an S unless you use ice platforms to hit it with your weapon instead of the bombs at some points as well as a warm elixir or the paladin armor to avoid freezing)
There's a new game+ of sorts but you only get to keep crafted weapons from the previous playthrough and they reset to level 1
Static difficulty in terms of the bosses?
Can't duck or crawl - can't play as Atalan (NPC crew member/assist char who can move through narrow spaces during some cutscenes)
-
Dashing is weird - have to press down and then a direction to dash (pressing down is supposed to cancel your attack combo quickly but it's an unnecessary extra step from how dashing works in CV or MM, there's also a short cooldown timer to it so you can't spam dashing+a sound every time it fills up though you can gain 2-3 more timers letting you dodge and/or dash 3-4 times in a row (upgraded Judicator's Raiment armor). While you can map dashing to a button you still have the issue of auto-dashing if you press a direction after stomping which can be a problem during platforming heavy segments or the fourth boss
Higher ranks from bosses reward you with stat and skill increases (max level via experience points is only 20 so you can only counter this to an extent with grinding) - feels backwards since a worse player would need them more. You might also want to get a lower rank than S at times depending on your build (since some stats might be much less useful to you for some builds) which requires looking up guides or trial & error, though this aspect is more important on higher difficulties. However if you want to fight the two optional bosses then they help a lot and it's also the late-game bosses that reward you with the most stat points. Raising the level cap and/or letting players re-fight bosses later on in an arena or something would've been decent fixes here.
Various control/interface issues (can't dodge out of some mid-air knockback states (hallow boss, angel key sewer boss, some others), no invincibility time after being frozen so you can be frozen repeatedly (forces to waggle the d-pad left and right), jump canceling out of a heavy sword swing is different - no automatic attack is performed, the map doesn't mark rock barriers+chests+the beige breakable walls+narrow paths, can't place map markers, can't view other area maps than the one you're currently in from the map screen, some movement delay after landing from being knocked into the air, don't regain mid-air control until landing if you got knocked back, some movement delay after climbing a ledge, can't cancel a dash without jumping, some movement delay if moving backwards right after landing (not if you start pressing before landing), automatically jump upwards if pressing away from a wall while clinging to it, some delay before you regain mid-air control after wall jumping, your avatar takes a step forward with each swing and if you're next to the edge of a platform you'll fall off, some movement delay after landing if you fall further than the max jump height+there's always a movement delay after landing if letting go from a ledge no matter how short the distance to the ground is, can't speed up dialogue on a per message box basis - pressing the button while one is being typed out also skips the message, some delay before a press on an attack button registers right after blocking - different from how combos work otherwise where there's some delay but each press registers, somewhat floaty jumps, can't quit using Alt+F4, the map doesn't show walls/floors within rooms, no quest log (fairly easy to forget some NPC comments on what to do next such as how to activate the spare heater core given by Claudia), sloppy hit detection when trying to hit ceiling climbing enemies from certain angles with one of the assists, some input lag while performing mid-air combos on the surprise jellyfish boss - sometimes couldn't perform a stomp dodge)
You'll reach max char level two areas before the last one (before doing the pit+halls of the fallen+eye boss in the hallow, tried to explore areas fully and did only a bit of grinding against weak enemies at one point for polished stones)
Trial & error (some missables** (made worse because there's only one save slot per game), elixirs auto-activate when bought and you can't check which one is active in any menu - only by how it looks, some mechanics not explained in-game (armor ruin - determines how much armor your physical attacks will ignore, can dash through enemies, just pressing down counts as dodging once you have the skill cancel ability), hard to find an area's save point at times, some leaps of faith - can't look down/up, the focus mechanic isn't introduced properly - you just suddenly get tutorial messages during the first boss fight, surprise boss fight if backtracking in the first area after getting to the town and if you're holding a teddy bear on the way to the library+when backtracking through western skyway towards ziggurat (jellyfish), most boss patterns, have to quit to the main menu to retry a boss after beating it, can wall jump on the face of the third boss (ice dragon), finite number of spell upgrades - 4 in total, one of the assists can cancel the toughest part of the temple boss fight (whirlwind part), enemies near edges of platforms while escaping the mines, some enemies can shoot through walls, some shots from off screen - kinda rare though, some timed challenge rooms since you don't have a proper overview of things at first)
Some difficulty spikes (the fourth boss (garden), the temple boss (unless you figured out which assist to use and/or used the ice platforms to stop the fire hazards and went here after the sewers), getting 100% completion in the mines while escaping - can go back here later though thanks to an update) and some dips (palace bosses at around level 15 with wyatt)
Some tedious aspects (no invincibility time after falling into spikes, the fourth boss's bubble spam attack - even if you dodge there's no invincibility so you just get juggled again, enemies that both poison you and drain your MP - only solutions seems to be collecting items to trade for an antidote elixir, in some areas there are some chests that make you backtrack pretty far if you fall down while trying to reach them (garden, temple, one chest in western skyway, nw laboratory thanks to there also being a one-way path in the save room) and in the ziggurat where you can fall down during a mini-boss fight, slow moving platforms in the fire temple area, collectathon aspect to trading with randomized drops leads to a bit of grinding, some backtracking (back to town after the garden boss, ), how you can't dash through the fire hazards during the temple boss fight, can' reset a timer crystal whenever - have to wait until the timer runs out, opened doors from finished timed gate challenges don't stay opened - rarely an issue but sometimes gates progression in an area, can't trade in unused gear for materials or other gear, some empty rooms here and there, can't quick travel to the sunken prison town and some gear can only be upgraded there - it's also kinda tedious to go back to due to a timed gate, backtracking from sanctuary back to hrukk)
Kind of bland intros (artwork stills and text which can't be sped up - only skipped, first one is also rather short and vague)
Mostly repeated enemies around the mid to late-game (sewer, mines, some in the palace, etc.)
Pretty cliché story with sometimes melodramatic dialogue
Somewhat garish color shading
Very short dialogue when finding some crew members and their dialogue generally doesn't update when revisiting the library where they all gather
Some odd screen transitions (fade to black in central skyway area)
Having a shop-like menu called "lore" when speaking to Vladyn for info on other characters in the world feels overly gamey
Sometimes stupid enemy AI (sometimes jumps or dashes into pits)
No neutral creatures or friendly ones moving around that help you progress (see Super Metroid)
Two areas are long corridors (hall of the fallen, lost gardens) and two others aren't far from it (the pit, hallow, sanctuary)
Ancient coins are too rare unless you use a luck attribute-based char
Bugs:
-Retrying by quitting to the main menu doesn't work against the sewer boss guarding the angel key if you do it after the fight ends. Happened again at one point for me though I forget where
-Sometimes froze my PC when returning to windowed mode from full screen (Win10)
-Blurry backgrounds when the screen scrolls seems to be a problem on some PCs but I didn't have this problem
-The boss music sometimes won't play when retrying a boss fight
Notes:
-*To an extent: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=285679883
-**Missables:
-Temporarily in the Crystal mines as the area gets destroyed after beating its boss (two chests and one crew should be grabbed before it and one red chest and one crew after it but before exiting the area). It is possible to go back there through Engineer's Palace once you have the Divine Key however.
The villages can be destroyed if you do not backtrack to see specific events at the right time:
-You need to kill the Yeti in Tagrum's Derelicts before reaching Ishk if you want to save the Executioner's Hall
-You need to go back to see Tagrum's Elder after finishing the Fire Temple and before killing Treu to save Tagrum
-You need to fix Ishk's Mana Heater before obtaining the Divine Key in order to save Ishk
-Some material items are finite (can't be grinded for) and if you upgrade certain earlier gear then you'll have wasted needed materials for some later ones
Comment:
I beat Valdis Story (PC, 2013) the other day, reposting this from another thread that got wiped. There's a lot of ups and downs but overall it's a very good game worth playing if you're into Devil Mary Cry and metroidvanias. You get four different chars to choose from, one of them starting in a different part of the world and another with double jump, and these have different skill trees while each one can also be given a few different specialized builds with synergies between attributes and skills similar to Diablo. The boss fights are among the better ones in the genre overall and most enemies have relatively advanced behavior, there are some fun timed platforming challenges here and there, and you'll have pretty good mobility some ways into the game. The world is also pretty well interconnected and the game opens up pretty well after the early game, so you can do various areas in a different order albeit with a less smooth difficulty.
The original reddit post was mainly about the ranking system, getting into that below:
One of the more odd design decisions is how the boss fight rankings work - if you get an A or S rank for a boss fight you tend to get stat increases or skill points, which is actually pretty significant because the level cap is relatively low and you'll easily reach max level a couple of areas before the end if you explore pretty thoroughly, plus it's easier to get a high rank if you keep up with the rankings throughout the game. Getting to these ranks is often way harder than simply beating the bosses as you have to stay within a time limit, not use any healing potions (these trigger when you were supposed to die like fairies in Zelda, you can use healing spells and MP potions however), and you have to take as few hits as possible (plus if they're slow attacks it has more of an effect on this rank) as well as string longer combos together and vary attacks up somewhat. You either have to find an exploit, learn their patterns really well and/or use the right mix of gear, spells and items.
At the same, the game lets you retry a boss fight (even right after you beat it) as many times as you like, which only affects part of the game completion ranking (and if you simply reload it doesn't affect this stat but then you might have to backtrack a bit to the boss) and you can retry very quickly via the menu. You can also display your current rankings during a fight so you know when it's time to retry, and getting an S in two categories but A in one counts as an S overall (except if you used a healing potion, so there's yet another quirk). Finally there's one more quirk which is that holding back and getting an A is occasionally more beneficial for your character's build, though that can be respecced (which costs some materials gained from enemies but it's not too bad).
The ranking system's impact combined with the low level cap feels backwards since a worse player is more likely to need these bonuses against later bosses and optional ones (some of them being the hardest in the game), particularly on higher difficulties. You easily get addicted to getting high ranks but it's also the biggest source of frustration in the game.
The game is mostly forgotten now, and hasn't been updated since 2016 or so which is a shame. It could use some map system improvements like being able to place markers and view the whole world at once in the menu, one more quick travel point or perhaps a town portal item/spell, tighter controls in some regards as there are movement delays after various moves, and either a rebalanced normal mode or an added easy mode. The use of the electric whip tool and the teleporting tool could also be expanded with more advanced puzzle situations to use them in.
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7.5/8.5* Fun-7.5 Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7.5
*Getting all S ranks
+
Start out with ledge clinging and eight different spells (Wyatt)
Spell slot system (can switch between light and dark spells for four slots - each is triggered with a button press and a direction or in mid-air)
Manual attribute and skill point allocation when leveling up (four attributes (strength, agility (affects crit chance and focus mode duration rather than speed or evasion and "to hit" rolls which don't exist here), intelligence, luck), three skill trees w/ three sub categories each - combat/defense/magic themed). Strategic element in finding synergies between skills, equipment and attributes (Diablo 2) as well as picking accessories since these all have buff and debuffs attached
Four different playable chars with different playstyles (Wyatt - weapons, Reina - punches and kicks, Gilda - magic-based attacks+start with double jump but a third attack replaces blocking, Vladyn - starts with a gun; have to unlock the last two). One of the characters starts in a different area (vladyn starts in Hrukk/the second town) and one starts with a double jump (gilda)
Some interesting abilities (create one ice platform at a time on the ground which lets you reach higher/further (similar to Solomon's Key or Wonder Boy 3, can also block projectiles and get you past some fire barriers), invisibility - can be combined with stealth attacks for high damage, pull yourself towards an enemy - mid-air thunder spell, pull an enemy towards you - sideways thunder spell (could've been aimable though as the other one auto-aims), horizontal teleport with the black hole spell - kinda underused though you can use it more if you do the palace area after the ziggurat one)
Skippable cutscenes
Mini-map (hold L1 to show; shows basic room layout with exits and which room you're currently in, marks save points outside of towns, towns and color codes rooms with a locked door in them (check the map screen in the menu for explanations), doesn't show adjacent areas to the one you're in). The map screen also shows the exploration completion rate per area (but not item collecting completion rate)
No contact damage (you also push regular enemies slowly if moving into them)
Nice animation overall (no dialogue portrait animation)
Difficulty options (Normal-God Slayer - four modes, no easy mode; on harder modes the later versions of enemies are introduced earlier and they have new moves+different attack patterns)
Auto-revive items (life potions - Wonder Boy 3/Zelda 3, placed items in the world). There's also an equivalent for MP - can't set this to not auto-use?
Block by default (only stops regular attacks until you upgrade your mana key stone) and enemies can also block. Some ways into the game you can upgrade it to a parry which will stun an enemy if timed right (enemies can also do this). You also gain dodge and dash dodge moves early on ("skill cancel", some cooldown on these but can get up to four charges to use in a row)
Pretty good combo system (fast and strong attacks (strong attacks break through the blocking of regular enemies but not stronger ones), 4 hits in a row by default if you combine fast and strong attacks or use only strong attacks - can be extended by 2, there's also a multiplier which increases as long as you don't get hit and too much time doesn't pass between successful hits (affects focus point gain, exp gain and combat score during boss fights) - can combine melee attacks with magic and assists here)
Ranking system for boss fights (you're graded in 3 categories (time, style=damage taken and if the attacks were slow or not+combo multiplier achieved and using varied attacks*, amount of healing potions used), gain better rewards with higher ranks, two Ss and one A counts as an overall S as long as you didn't use a healing potion)
Focus feature (increases AP and lets you perform a finisher move with a simple button combo, increased by raising the combo multiplier+killing enemies+getting hit)
Assist move (can call on a found crew member NPC to perform a move during combat - similar to X-Men (MD) and Capcom's X vs. Y series, about 7 seconds long cooldown). One of the assists summons an ally to fight alongside the player (reina can even freeze bosses). Use-based leveling of these attacks
Retry option after dying to a boss (if you survived but got a bad rank you'll have to quit the game and select retry from the main menu instead)
Some decent puzzles (timed gates, platform creation, some platforming puzzles where you use the wall jump after dropping down, spatial awareness in the palace)
Some interesting level gimmicks (slow health drain in a couple of areas, poison emitting machines that can be destroyed in the lab, enemies that make nearby enemies invincible)
Good bosses overall (pretty intense and the intensity escalates when they're near death (sometimes the pattern also changes), they tend to summon enemies or other hazards, vs Dhistahn in the sewers you can break the pipes to raise the water and make him easier to see while he's invisible (the bleed status effect also helps), )
Upgradeable gear and spells (weapons=4 levels (these also have basic upgrade trees), armor=5 levels, magic=3 levels)
Some mini-bosses
Toggle for displaying your current rankings during a boss fight
Enemies can accidentally hit each other (systemic element)
Some new enemies appear when revisiting certain areas and some older ones gain new moves. Some new bosses also appear
Some scripted events where you meet and fight alongside NPCs (most NPCs stand in one spot in towns however and so do most of the crew members you find while exploring)
The floating dog (joke NPC and one armed bandit-style assist)
Good mobility after getting the double jump (around mid-game) and a couple of dash/dodge charges
Block counter skill (counter attack if you time your blocking right)
Some minor skips (a few by casting a spell in mid-air right after wall jumping to reach high/long enough to grab ledges you otherwise couldn't, one in the temple using an ice platform to skip a timing challenge, can get the mana stone in the hallow early with damage boosting; more and more major ones with glitches)
Four optional bosses (some of them are among the hardest in the game)
+/-
Pretty non-linear structure after a certain point (opens up after reaching the third town - can explore two different areas at this point (temple, sewers; can enter "the pit" but not explore most of it until after engineer's palace - just a small area with an optional boss in it as well) and if you do the temple first you can then explore the mines which gives access to ziggurat via the demon key or you can get the angel key in the sewers and then go to engineer's palace (or you can go to the lower central skyway though it's pretty tough), can go to the laboratory after the mines, can backtrack to face some optional bosses and to get items and crew member NPCs with new abilities, can choose when to sidetrack for the yeti boss but you're supposed to do it before getting to Ishk/town 3 (see missables); single entry points to some areas (hall of the fallen, guardian temple, ziggurat, the sanctuary))
Save points (about one per area, one slot per game, these also refill your potions). Shows current level, gear and selected assist, completion rate, time taken and current location
MP regen (starts off kinda slow but can be upgraded). Can also gain HP regen as a skill
Can quick travel between 3 towns (there's no town portal item or spell though so there's still some backtracking)
Can jump cancel out of a fast sword swing however you'll automatically perform a jump attack which makes you less maneuverable in mid-air (can't jump cancel out of a spell casting). You're instead supposed to use the skill cancel ability, which is also a dodge move
If you mash the attack button then a sword swing will be executed for each button press rather than having to time presses according to the animations (which are relatively slow)
Can't use a spell triggered with "R2+l/r" on the d-pad while in mid-air
Automatically cling to ledges if pressing towards them - generally good but occasionally gets in the way when doing a timed gate challenge due to how some rooms are laid out
The second swing in a combo reaches further than the first - minor issue when jumping upwards and attacking but otherwise it generally isn't since you also step forward with each swing and there's no contact damage
Stomping doesn't affect enemies
Shorter default combo if you only use fast attacks (3 hits)
Can't escape from boss fights
It's better to specialize in 2 attributes/main stats rather than making an all-rounder build
Jumping is a bit faster than running (dashing also doesn't affect horizontal speed or jump length)
The Luck stat isn't properly explained in text in-game but you can see most of its effects on your base stats (it also raises drop rates)
Basic crafting (only way to buy items is trading in lesser items for them - no money, leads to some grinding at times if you want certain gear or items)
There's also a Final Combat Rank for a couple of achievements and it's affected by the number of retries used for bosses
Can't repeatedly wall jump to climb the same wall
Skillful dodging doesn't factor into style points when it comes to boss rank (not taking damage does though) so it's sometimes better to learn a boss's pattern and try to optimize your damage output since time taken is also important
Some movement delay after the third hit in a sword combo - not before the third hit
Some nods to the FF series in the OST
Two escape sequences (after beating the crystal mines boss and before the final one)
Can't enter background doors
Can respec your skills and attributes at the first town (east of it) but it costs materials to do so and some of them are rare
No upwards melee attack as Wyatt (can use a certain assist to hit flying enemies or ones climbing on the ceiling)
The cooldown on dashing and dodging is delayed if you start a combo (as soon as you hit an enemy - if you make combos without hitting anything it has no effect on the cooldown)
Subsequent skill cancel/dodge cooldown timers trigger after the previous one has finished recharging (if you dashed three times in a row quickly then it still takes the same amount of time for the other ones to recharge)
Sometimes randomized enemy spawning in some rooms (skyway area)
Relatively few ability gates (mostly locked doors, some abilities used like keys to progress such as thunder to activate the spare core and (optional?) fire to unfreeze one NPC)
Most skills simply affect stats (such as critical hit success rate) but there are various exceptions (wyatt, reina has some of these as well as variations on some and some new ones): tenacity - increase attack damage with 4+ hit combos, combo expert adds one more attack to your combo, blade shred - bleed/poison-like effect which also lets you see invisible enemies, ambush - 100% crit chance when attacking from stealth (shadow walk spell), hunter's bounty - killing blow recovers skill cancel/dodge charge, assassin - run while stealthed, parry - block at the right moment to stagger enemy+counter attack, HP regen, fortify - parry yields a partial temporary shield, swift steps - dash dodge an attack to recover skill cancel/dodge charge, null shield - absorb one enemy spell and convert to MP, MP and HP steal skills, judgement and saint - killing blow recovers MP and HP respectively, holy order and black blessing - chance to cast these on hit
Bosses are a lot harder than the other enemies for the most part
The mines look basically the same when revisiting them after the cave in
Cool but overly drawn out final boss battle (climb its tentacles to hit it in the face and knock bomb orbs into it while it's weakened while also fighting off enemies and avoiding freezing; very hard to get an S unless you use ice platforms to hit it with your weapon instead of the bombs at some points as well as a warm elixir or the paladin armor to avoid freezing)
There's a new game+ of sorts but you only get to keep crafted weapons from the previous playthrough and they reset to level 1
Static difficulty in terms of the bosses?
Can't duck or crawl - can't play as Atalan (NPC crew member/assist char who can move through narrow spaces during some cutscenes)
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Dashing is weird - have to press down and then a direction to dash (pressing down is supposed to cancel your attack combo quickly but it's an unnecessary extra step from how dashing works in CV or MM, there's also a short cooldown timer to it so you can't spam dashing+a sound every time it fills up though you can gain 2-3 more timers letting you dodge and/or dash 3-4 times in a row (upgraded Judicator's Raiment armor). While you can map dashing to a button you still have the issue of auto-dashing if you press a direction after stomping which can be a problem during platforming heavy segments or the fourth boss
Higher ranks from bosses reward you with stat and skill increases (max level via experience points is only 20 so you can only counter this to an extent with grinding) - feels backwards since a worse player would need them more. You might also want to get a lower rank than S at times depending on your build (since some stats might be much less useful to you for some builds) which requires looking up guides or trial & error, though this aspect is more important on higher difficulties. However if you want to fight the two optional bosses then they help a lot and it's also the late-game bosses that reward you with the most stat points. Raising the level cap and/or letting players re-fight bosses later on in an arena or something would've been decent fixes here.
Various control/interface issues (can't dodge out of some mid-air knockback states (hallow boss, angel key sewer boss, some others), no invincibility time after being frozen so you can be frozen repeatedly (forces to waggle the d-pad left and right), jump canceling out of a heavy sword swing is different - no automatic attack is performed, the map doesn't mark rock barriers+chests+the beige breakable walls+narrow paths, can't place map markers, can't view other area maps than the one you're currently in from the map screen, some movement delay after landing from being knocked into the air, don't regain mid-air control until landing if you got knocked back, some movement delay after climbing a ledge, can't cancel a dash without jumping, some movement delay if moving backwards right after landing (not if you start pressing before landing), automatically jump upwards if pressing away from a wall while clinging to it, some delay before you regain mid-air control after wall jumping, your avatar takes a step forward with each swing and if you're next to the edge of a platform you'll fall off, some movement delay after landing if you fall further than the max jump height+there's always a movement delay after landing if letting go from a ledge no matter how short the distance to the ground is, can't speed up dialogue on a per message box basis - pressing the button while one is being typed out also skips the message, some delay before a press on an attack button registers right after blocking - different from how combos work otherwise where there's some delay but each press registers, somewhat floaty jumps, can't quit using Alt+F4, the map doesn't show walls/floors within rooms, no quest log (fairly easy to forget some NPC comments on what to do next such as how to activate the spare heater core given by Claudia), sloppy hit detection when trying to hit ceiling climbing enemies from certain angles with one of the assists, some input lag while performing mid-air combos on the surprise jellyfish boss - sometimes couldn't perform a stomp dodge)
You'll reach max char level two areas before the last one (before doing the pit+halls of the fallen+eye boss in the hallow, tried to explore areas fully and did only a bit of grinding against weak enemies at one point for polished stones)
Trial & error (some missables** (made worse because there's only one save slot per game), elixirs auto-activate when bought and you can't check which one is active in any menu - only by how it looks, some mechanics not explained in-game (armor ruin - determines how much armor your physical attacks will ignore, can dash through enemies, just pressing down counts as dodging once you have the skill cancel ability), hard to find an area's save point at times, some leaps of faith - can't look down/up, the focus mechanic isn't introduced properly - you just suddenly get tutorial messages during the first boss fight, surprise boss fight if backtracking in the first area after getting to the town and if you're holding a teddy bear on the way to the library+when backtracking through western skyway towards ziggurat (jellyfish), most boss patterns, have to quit to the main menu to retry a boss after beating it, can wall jump on the face of the third boss (ice dragon), finite number of spell upgrades - 4 in total, one of the assists can cancel the toughest part of the temple boss fight (whirlwind part), enemies near edges of platforms while escaping the mines, some enemies can shoot through walls, some shots from off screen - kinda rare though, some timed challenge rooms since you don't have a proper overview of things at first)
Some difficulty spikes (the fourth boss (garden), the temple boss (unless you figured out which assist to use and/or used the ice platforms to stop the fire hazards and went here after the sewers), getting 100% completion in the mines while escaping - can go back here later though thanks to an update) and some dips (palace bosses at around level 15 with wyatt)
Some tedious aspects (no invincibility time after falling into spikes, the fourth boss's bubble spam attack - even if you dodge there's no invincibility so you just get juggled again, enemies that both poison you and drain your MP - only solutions seems to be collecting items to trade for an antidote elixir, in some areas there are some chests that make you backtrack pretty far if you fall down while trying to reach them (garden, temple, one chest in western skyway, nw laboratory thanks to there also being a one-way path in the save room) and in the ziggurat where you can fall down during a mini-boss fight, slow moving platforms in the fire temple area, collectathon aspect to trading with randomized drops leads to a bit of grinding, some backtracking (back to town after the garden boss, ), how you can't dash through the fire hazards during the temple boss fight, can' reset a timer crystal whenever - have to wait until the timer runs out, opened doors from finished timed gate challenges don't stay opened - rarely an issue but sometimes gates progression in an area, can't trade in unused gear for materials or other gear, some empty rooms here and there, can't quick travel to the sunken prison town and some gear can only be upgraded there - it's also kinda tedious to go back to due to a timed gate, backtracking from sanctuary back to hrukk)
Kind of bland intros (artwork stills and text which can't be sped up - only skipped, first one is also rather short and vague)
Mostly repeated enemies around the mid to late-game (sewer, mines, some in the palace, etc.)
Pretty cliché story with sometimes melodramatic dialogue
Somewhat garish color shading
Very short dialogue when finding some crew members and their dialogue generally doesn't update when revisiting the library where they all gather
Some odd screen transitions (fade to black in central skyway area)
Having a shop-like menu called "lore" when speaking to Vladyn for info on other characters in the world feels overly gamey
Sometimes stupid enemy AI (sometimes jumps or dashes into pits)
No neutral creatures or friendly ones moving around that help you progress (see Super Metroid)
Two areas are long corridors (hall of the fallen, lost gardens) and two others aren't far from it (the pit, hallow, sanctuary)
Ancient coins are too rare unless you use a luck attribute-based char
Bugs:
-Retrying by quitting to the main menu doesn't work against the sewer boss guarding the angel key if you do it after the fight ends. Happened again at one point for me though I forget where
-Sometimes froze my PC when returning to windowed mode from full screen (Win10)
-Blurry backgrounds when the screen scrolls seems to be a problem on some PCs but I didn't have this problem
-The boss music sometimes won't play when retrying a boss fight
Notes:
-*To an extent: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=285679883
-**Missables:
-Temporarily in the Crystal mines as the area gets destroyed after beating its boss (two chests and one crew should be grabbed before it and one red chest and one crew after it but before exiting the area). It is possible to go back there through Engineer's Palace once you have the Divine Key however.
The villages can be destroyed if you do not backtrack to see specific events at the right time:
-You need to kill the Yeti in Tagrum's Derelicts before reaching Ishk if you want to save the Executioner's Hall
-You need to go back to see Tagrum's Elder after finishing the Fire Temple and before killing Treu to save Tagrum
-You need to fix Ishk's Mana Heater before obtaining the Divine Key in order to save Ishk
-Some material items are finite (can't be grinded for) and if you upgrade certain earlier gear then you'll have wasted needed materials for some later ones
Comment:
I beat Valdis Story (PC, 2013) the other day, reposting this from another thread that got wiped. There's a lot of ups and downs but overall it's a very good game worth playing if you're into Devil Mary Cry and metroidvanias. You get four different chars to choose from, one of them starting in a different part of the world and another with double jump, and these have different skill trees while each one can also be given a few different specialized builds with synergies between attributes and skills similar to Diablo. The boss fights are among the better ones in the genre overall and most enemies have relatively advanced behavior, there are some fun timed platforming challenges here and there, and you'll have pretty good mobility some ways into the game. The world is also pretty well interconnected and the game opens up pretty well after the early game, so you can do various areas in a different order albeit with a less smooth difficulty.
The original reddit post was mainly about the ranking system, getting into that below:
One of the more odd design decisions is how the boss fight rankings work - if you get an A or S rank for a boss fight you tend to get stat increases or skill points, which is actually pretty significant because the level cap is relatively low and you'll easily reach max level a couple of areas before the end if you explore pretty thoroughly, plus it's easier to get a high rank if you keep up with the rankings throughout the game. Getting to these ranks is often way harder than simply beating the bosses as you have to stay within a time limit, not use any healing potions (these trigger when you were supposed to die like fairies in Zelda, you can use healing spells and MP potions however), and you have to take as few hits as possible (plus if they're slow attacks it has more of an effect on this rank) as well as string longer combos together and vary attacks up somewhat. You either have to find an exploit, learn their patterns really well and/or use the right mix of gear, spells and items.
At the same, the game lets you retry a boss fight (even right after you beat it) as many times as you like, which only affects part of the game completion ranking (and if you simply reload it doesn't affect this stat but then you might have to backtrack a bit to the boss) and you can retry very quickly via the menu. You can also display your current rankings during a fight so you know when it's time to retry, and getting an S in two categories but A in one counts as an S overall (except if you used a healing potion, so there's yet another quirk). Finally there's one more quirk which is that holding back and getting an A is occasionally more beneficial for your character's build, though that can be respecced (which costs some materials gained from enemies but it's not too bad).
The ranking system's impact combined with the low level cap feels backwards since a worse player is more likely to need these bonuses against later bosses and optional ones (some of them being the hardest in the game), particularly on higher difficulties. You easily get addicted to getting high ranks but it's also the biggest source of frustration in the game.
The game is mostly forgotten now, and hasn't been updated since 2016 or so which is a shame. It could use some map system improvements like being able to place markers and view the whole world at once in the menu, one more quick travel point or perhaps a town portal item/spell, tighter controls in some regards as there are movement delays after various moves, and either a rebalanced normal mode or an added easy mode. The use of the electric whip tool and the teleporting tool could also be expanded with more advanced puzzle situations to use them in.