Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection

If you're going to release something titled Valis: The Phantasm Soldier Collection it's not unreasonable to expect it to contain a full complement of Valis games, even if only for one format. Unfortunately, those hoping for a one-stop Yuko (and friends) shop are going to be disappointed. What's here is delivered in a no-nonsense, serviceable fashion, and newcomers may well fall in love with the action heroine's slightly awkward games... only to find they're missing the final entry.

This collection is more interesting in idea than in content; its mere existence is indeed a very cool thing, but the content presented here, the three Valis games, doesn't stand the test of time very well, as they carry a very, very eighties lack of polish.

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection is a compilation that brings us the first three installments of a franchise that is quite unknown in the West. Although its first installment appeared on MSX in 1986 created by the Wolf Team, the compilation includes its remake for PC-Engine Super CD-ROM² and the second and third installments for PC-Engine CD-ROM². Added accessibility improvements and other extras that greatly improve the experience. Although having included at least Valis IV is missed, recovering this franchise has been very worthwhile, and the titles they offer us are competent platform and action games that will give us good times of fun.

The first Valis is still well worth playing, make no mistake, if only from a historical perspective. But it’s a lot easier to genuinely enjoy pretty much everything about Valis III.

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection is a fantastic little package that I imagine fans of the franchise would just lap up. The bonus features and care that have been put into the emulation are commendable. The quality of Valis: The Fantasm Soldier really cannot be understated as I fell in love with it almost instantly. When I started playing, I was joking to our dear chief here at NookGaming that the rest of the games could be naff and it would still score high. Little did I know that would partially be the case. I have no desire to play Valis II in any shape or form again anytime soon. Fortunately, Valis III seemed to fix some of the issues I had. The fact this collection is missing at least 1 major game and a Super-Deformed reimagining of Valis II is very hard to overlook. This married with a high asking price and the other issues raised, it may be a little too much to suggest picking this up outside of a sale.

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection is a compilation of games previous released on the PC Engine and is geared towards the franchise fans, who already know Yuuko's saga and wish to play it again in the current generation; however, those action platformers can also be enjoyed by retro game enthusiasts. Though there are discrepancies in the gameplay and graphic quality among the titles contained in the collection, the excellent soundtrack and narrative told through Japanese-voiced animated cutscenes is more than enough to showcase one of the most important franchises of the 80s/90s.

While I wish this package could have done even more cool stuff such as throw in old trailers and prototypes, what we have here is excellently presented by the folks at D4 Enterprise (Wii U Virtual Console TG16 + Project EGG emulators), and I’m super excited that Edia is actually doing something with the Telenet properties, and something fun at that. Here’s hoping we see the Valis series come back with a new game, in as great of a way as Blaster Master Zero!