Valdis Story: Abyssal City

One of the greatest Metroidvanias on Steam. I'd do anything for a sequel.

This is in my top five games of all time, it has a compelling storyline, fun dialog, and a great combat and movement system. 100% would suggest this game. PS: it is a bit hard for starting players, so if you are unwilling to try twentyish times on a boss fight the first time then this may not be the game for you.

[i]Valdis Story: Abyssal City[/i] is a 2013 Metroidvania with a distinct identity — from its hand-drawn art and phenomenal soundtrack to its brutal combat and rigid controls. Few games look or sound like it, and that’s a big reason it’s stuck with me over the years. The music is a particular highlight, with area-specific tracks and a nine-minute boss theme that makes fights feel epic. Visually, the game has aged gracefully thanks to its painterly art style — it’s timeless rather than dated. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about how it feels. The controls are stiff and oddly specific: jumps feel weightless, ledge grabs are sticky, and dodging mid-combo requires a skill cancel — which you can’t always do. It creates this strange friction where the combat sounds amazing on paper but ends up fighting you more than the enemies. This is also a [i]mean[/i] game. Random material drops can force grinding, story events can permanently kill off NPCs (and entire towns), and environmental effects like poison or freezing can make areas nearly unplayable if you lack specific items. The platforming sections are strict and often timed, with knockback from enemies sending you back to square one. Bosses are plentiful (21 total), distinct, and often punishing. But every fight includes additional enemies, which turns arenas into chaotic messes. Worse still, bosses are graded — if you want your stats to improve, you need to score high ranks. You’re literally punished for not being near perfect. There’s no skipping dialogue either, which makes replays tedious — and if you die in the permadeath [i]Goibniu[/i] mode, you’ll get to rewatch those scenes endlessly. I don’t think I like this game, but I do find it fascinating. It’s difficult, grindy, and occasionally infuriating, but it also feels alive in how much it demands of you. It has real heart, even when that heart is punching you in the face. If you love demanding combat systems and can tolerate stiff controls, Valdis Story might be something special for you. If you’re here for exploration or story, it’ll probably just make you angry. [b]Verdict[/b]: [i]A flawed but memorable gem for a very specific audience.[/i]

It's not bad. It does some things really well like combat is fun and challenging. For a game that's over 10 years old the combat is on the better side of Metroidvania combat. It feel rewarding when beating a boss and the better you do you get permanent stat boosts. Combat is button mashy and there are a lot of hidden combos you can pull off, but bosses are kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. When they get around 1/3 of their health remaining they all get spammy with projectiles and attacks. There are 6 different magic elements with 4 spells each to mix and match around but half of them felt like they were very situational and not worth the time to commit to them. Overall the spells could have been cut in half and nothing would have been lost. The controls are a bit awkward and take some getting use to. Going back to magic, it is awkward to cast at times in combat based on the casting process. You hold the RT and flight the right analog in a direction to cast a spell or jump in the air and hit RT to cast another type of spell. Map is a decent size and offers lots to explore with plenty of treasure chests to collect. There are a lot of timing puzzles related to platforming and moving fast to get to many chests. The time windows are often very short and rely of precision so it's not really forgiving. Everything is on the unforgiving side in the game though. Also there was too much backtracking for me. Having to make several runs back and forth through the towns gets old quickly since nothing changes in the old areas you explore when you come back. Overall solid game with a few things that could be improved. The story was pretty good and all the animations were smooth and the game is nice to look at. Recommend for fans of Metroidvanias that focus on combat.

Neat story, super fun combat with various builds for each character. Fairly short but the characters and their builds make for a lot of replayability. Some platforming parts can be a bit ehh but they're usually not too bad.

20/10 i love this game, it's like a replaying megaman x, Castlevania or Metroid 😉😉 i never finished the history of the other 3 characters but now it's the time

Looks gorgeous... feels bad. I bought this back in the day cus I felt bad about pirating it but couldn't bring myself to ever finish it before or after purchasing. I love the art though and am glad my money was well spent on nice visuals.

On paper I should love this game. Focuses on angels and demons / holy and dark spells and affinity. Metroidvania, action combat etc. But the execution is just so frustrating I couldn't get past more than forcing myself to play for an hour. Let me stress this, I LOVE games with holy stuff in it, whether it be themes, magic, etc. Just want to clarify. But unfortunately - - Combat is clunky and janky - Movement is slow and applies momentum really strangely, making comboing and platforming really tedious - Speaking of, level design is claustrophobic and seemingly obsessed with timed gates just to move to the next area. Seriously, in an hour of gameplay I must have had to go through like 10 timed/race the clock gates just to transition from one area to another. - Story seems like a real slow burn. After an hour of gametime, all I still know is "angels and demons don't like us, but please help us re-establish contact with another village".....ok.....really low stakes, no immersion, character building etc. - Graphics are 2D and "just fine" - Power fantasy doesn't really come through, magic feels like a wet fart, melee feels / sounds like wiffing unless doing the heavy attack. - Music and sound design is also "just fine". - Leveling up feels anemic and not satisfying. You unlock a single stat point increase and sometimes minor perks that are really, really minor.

This feels more like 2D rpg rather than a metroidvania and the controls are messy but the combat is better than most if not all recent metroidvanias. I'd say try the game just so you can have better expectations for combat in future games.

👍