'Valfaris' is a blast of sci-fi metal action
Valfaris is metal as hell.
Right from the first scene as the hero Therion smashes his spaceship onto the surface of a floating space fortress, smashing a handful of alien monsters in bloody mess, Valfaris gets right in your face and thankfully never lets up. Except when you grab some new items and watch Therion do a little headbang celebration.
Valfaris is a 2D action platformer that starts players off with a standard plasma pistol and a killer sword which are used to blast and slice through enemy after enemy, whether it's the wolf-like monsters that leap at you in the first stage or the Hell Cobra boss a bit deeper in the fortress.
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Along with these weapons, you have a shield that can be used to stop projectile (or send them back at enemies if you have good timing) and you'll find a whole bunch of other weapons and guns along the way to mix up your loadout with. The variety and sheer amount of guns is actually surprising, but it is a great way to keep mixing things up as you dive deeper into the fortress.
Valfaris looks like it could be similar to Super Metroid given the sci-fi aesthetic and the gameplay mechanics, but it's much more straight forward than a Metroid game and focuses more on action set pieces than exploration. In fact, while there are some secrets to explore here and there, it's actually impossible to backtrack very far at all once you get to checkpoint.
The monsters in Valfaris are just as varied as the environments
While at first this was a little frustrating because I'm the kind of person that likes to explore 100% of these kinds of games, I got used to it pretty quickly and fell into the rhythm of pushing forward relentlessly, never looking back as I marveled at the beautifully rendered environments and slayed tons of enemies and bosses.
The monsters in Valfaris are just as varied as the environments, with tons of new enemies popping up all the time. Things never get old in Valfaris because each new area is filled with tons of new things.
The various boss fights are fun and unique and, importantly, tough. Most boss fights took me several attempts to beat as I learned their patterns and figured out the best ways to approach them. I learned quickly that using the shield wisely is key to survival.
With the surplus of checkpoints, it doesn't make dying so terrible and you never lose too much progress, as long as you spend the resurrection idols you collect on them.
The more you push onward, the more metal Valfaris is. You can see it in every scene of the game, but there's also other little elements that aid the aesthetic. There is one section of the game where there are these membranes blocking off sections that require alien pheromones to open up. How do you get these pheromones? Eviscerate an enemy and cover yourself in its blood, of course.
Throughout the whole game is a fantastic metal soundtrack created by extreme metal artist Curt Victor Bryant, who was part of the formative Swedish extreme metal band Celtic Frost.
It's a great combination of really well-done elements and worth checking out if you find yourself in need of a funa ction platformer.
Valfaris is out now on PC and Nintendo Switch and is coming to PlayStation 4 on Nov. 5 and Xbox One on Nov. 8.
Topics Gaming Nintendo Switch
