Valfaris
After mysteriously vanishing from galactic charts, the fortress of Valfaris has suddenly reappeared in the orbit of a dying sun. Once a self-contained paradise, the grandiose citadel now plays host to an ever-growing darkness.
Therion, a fearless and proud son of Valfaris, returns to his home to uncover the truth of its doomed fate and to challenge the arcane evil at its very heart.
Valfaris Key Features
- Skulls in space! Gore in space! Metal in space!
- Savagely reduce foes to piles of gibs with an array of brutal weaponry
- Explore a diverse range of tainted environments as you venture ever deeper into the dark world of Valfaris
- Dominate ranks of deadly enemies and bosses, from the weird to the grotesque (and some that are just grotesquely weird)
- Gorge your eyes on devastatingly awesome pixel art hand-crafted by Andrew Gilmour
- Feel the power of a seismic soundtrack by extreme metaller and former Celtic Frost guitarist, Curt Victor Bryant
- Forged from the ground-up by the team behind cult hit Slain: Back From Hell
Valfaris Review
Valfaris is a sci-fi side-scrolling shooter, heavily inspired to the old-school classics of the genre such as Contra (or in part Super Metroid even if it’s not a metroidvania), but also including modern gameplay elements, and developed by Indie studio Steel Mantis. In this game, players will impersonate Therion, the renegade son of King Vroll, once a great ruler of Space Fortress Valfaris, now gone mad, bringing destruction and misery to all his kingdom. His outcast son has finally come to set things right, and intends to do so in the most metal, gore-filled, destructive way possible.
This game excels in conveying a dark, gore-filled, metal infused atmosphere with its superb sci-fi gothic setting, heavily reminiscent of Warhammer 40.000 (there are even some references to it). The environment, enemy, and weapon variety are excellent and contribute in delivering a different experience both visually and gameplay-wise in every new chapter. Adapting tactics to the new ambient threats and enemies, while discovering which weapon works best in what segment, makes considerable difference. Each level is filled with deadly traps, varied enemies, and several mid-bosses, generally less difficult than the final one of each chapter, but still challenging.
The game formula is well polished but has some flaws to note: first of all, the decision to use 8-way aiming instead of 360° is quite disappointing, at least giving players the possibility to choose between the two would be better; secondly, some bosses once defeated will trigger a “death move” which can kill the player even after defeating the boss (leading to reset from the last checkpoint), very unfair. Last but not least, the final boss fight is absolutely cheap and annoying, not really on-par with the otherwise great boss design seen until that point.
Overall, Valfaris is a really good sci-fi platformer/shooter with spot-on mechanics, superb environment design and exciting action, with some flaws which are definitely overridden by its positive aspects. For the proposed price and offering about 5-7 hours of content, with the future possibility of a New Game+ mode for those interested, and having overall excellent content quality, I definitely can recommend getting this game at full price.
Extra Tags: Valfaris, Valfaris download, download Valfaris, free Valfaris, Valfaris free, Valfaris full, play Valfaris, Valfaris play, Valfaris dl, Valfaris pc