Game #1291: Valis - The Fantasm Soldier Collection

90's anime babes!

 Valis is this obscure set of games that eventually turned into a hentai game, seriously. Well, Valis: The Fantasm Collection brings the first three games to the Switch. These are 2-D Sidescrollers from the 90's, featuring an armor-bikini clad heroine who battles monsters and the like. To be honest, this collection is as skimpy in content as Yuko is in clothes!

 For startes, only the Turbo-CD versions of the games are here, which, to be fair, are probably the best versions of these games. But, y'know, the first time I discovered these games was on the Genesis, via Emulation, so I've some nostalgia for those. Adding the Genesis roms wouldn't have been too much extra trouble, so it's a bit of a letdown. There's not much in the way of extra content, such as artwork, only getting the US and Japanese cover and instruction booklets. At least we get Save Stages and a Rewind feature that works in chunks, which is interesting.

Valis 1

 This one is really good. It starts with a fully voiced rudimentary cutscene that lasts too long, but that alone shows you that a lot of care went into the game. It felt like a very corny, basic anime, and I loved that. As you go through the game you'll occasionally get more of these. Not too shaby! And the sountrack is full of bangers.

 Jump, Attack and Slide, those are Yuko's only abilities. She can also use magic by holding down up when you press attack, if you've got MP to spare. At first I thought the slide's only function was to showcase Yuko's panties, because Japan is like that, but you'll actually need to use it to slide through thin air into certain platforms.

 As you break stuff you can pick up power ups that gives Yuko's slashes different beams. There's a homing beam, a spread-shot beam, one that shoots bouncing balls... which is very helpful to take down the large waves of enemies coming your wave.

 The game is unfair in every way you'd expect out of a 2-D platformer of the era. Move a little too far to the left and the enemy you just defeated will respawn, leaps of faith, and a ton of times enemies will jump out of nowhere unless you know where they are coming from. This would be frustrating if not for the Save States and the ability to rewind, which evens out the odds.

 I actually liked Valis 1 a lot. It hasn't aged the best, it's quite unfair, but this port gives you the ability to make it more fair and thus be able to enjoy this little gem.

Valis II

 Well, at first I was shocked, shocked! After going through Valis I, this one looks so chunky, and plays a bit more slowly! The cutscenes seem to have more colors but they don't look as sharp. The stages look quite basic in comparison to the first game and Yuko can't even slide. So I searched online, was this some sort of Genesis port? Maybe only Valis I was the PC-Engine version? Nope! This IS the PC-Engine version of Valis II, so what's the catch? Turns out Valis I on PC-Engine was released after Valis IV, it was actually a sort of remaster! Which explains why this game feels like such a big step backwards.

 Each Magic spell comes with a number of uses, instead of an MP bar, and you can find pick ups that permanently extend your health bar!

 Once I got used to the fact that this game is, in a way, a technical prequel, I actually got to enjoy it. Besides, the game feels a bit more fair, there are not leaps of faith in here. Still, I found the original to be more fun.

Valis III

 Sliding is back, baby! Or rather, this is the game that actually introduced sliding into the series. Yuko doesn't get alternate sword beams this time around, and the length of her beam depends on how long you wait before each slash. To compensate for this, Yuko is joined by two other characters, Cham and Valna. There aren't HUGE differences between characters, but the three spells(Thunder, Fire, Ice) are used differently by each heroine, and their basic attacks are different too.

 Alongside sliding, you can swap characters at any moment, save mid-boss fight, and now magic is governed by a magic gauge, much like Valis I. There's a new high jump by holding down up before pressing jump, which is a bit quirky, but not too uncomfortable. 

 Much like the other games, there's some cheapness in the enemy placement, but with rewind and save states, it's not too bad. That said, some parts are just annoying. I hadn't been using the Ice magic, so I didn't know its properties. At one point during the Water stage you need to freeze enemies in order to stand on top of them and make the jump. There was nothing hinting me towards this ability. Later on, on the Ice Caves, at one point you have to gauge the distance of your slide so that you don't overshoot yourself, yet have enough room to perform another slide, because there are spikes on top, in order to reach the next platform. Without Savestates, that part would've been incredibly unfair. The game looks better than Valis II, it's less chunky and a bit faster paced, but still lagging behind Valis I.

 Overall? It was another good platformer, but I had more fun with the other two, as some of the level design choices in the game were a bit suspect.

 The Valis trilogy is a neat little set of games to own if you enjoy 90's platformers. The game should've included more extras, like artwork, and there's no reason as to why they didn't include either Valis IV, the final game on the Turbo Engine, or at least the Genesis versions of these games, even if they are inferior, it would've made for a much more complete package. But what's here is quite serviceable considering the games are pretty decent.

 7.0