Posted on: May 5, 2024
SultanOfSuave
Bestätigter BesitzerSpiele: Rezensionen: 11
Fun game, visceral and cathartic.
In the arcades on Metal Slug on Contra for the NES, a player may be expected to practise to overcome whole levels or large segments at once. Valfaris takes this concept but modernises it considerably, offering upgradable weapons, the ability to increase the players stats, checkpoints, and a more expansive level design. Whilst playing like the aforementioned, the maps are more akin to Metroid or Castlevania, linear but sprawling with some platforming rather than a simple run and gun. More so, though the game is nominally split into levels and the player cannot back-track but the entire campaign takes place on a single interconnected map. This and the absence of loading screens really helps the game flow. Off the critical path, small side challenges are offered to reward the player with health or weapon upgrade tokens. The player here must make a decision, which allows for difficulty to scale with player skill. A less skilled player can spend health tokens on checkpoints, but a more skilled one may retain them for increased maximum health or trade them for weapon tokens at the expense for having to play through more of the level without dying. This also may encourage players to scavenge for more hidden tokens or try to better themselves by skipping certain checkpoints. The controls being limited to mimic an 8-way dpad further cements its old school style. But some weapons overcome this limitation, and many enemies are restricted in the same way. Also, the level design is solid and fair; there are no nasty surprises and the player is fairly taught about upcoming hazards, and then challenged. All of the above generate an experience that is very fun to play even when failing. Simply put, if the player is good enough or knows the level well enough, he wins. If a player is lacking, he will fail. I estimate the base challenge as reasonable; I'm not the most skilled, but overcame it without feeling crushed by the difficulty. For the daring there is the new game plus.
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