Syd of Valis

"Now introducing a title that makes no sense..."

Some games have it pretty rough, but none have it rougher than budget titles. These poor little redheaded stepchildren, looming in the shadow of other better games by their developer, spend their entire life languishing in the bargain bin never to be played by more than 14 people. They are sloppily done, full of holes, and in some cases translated with no effort whatsoever. To prove this, we have Syd of Valis. In this case, though, our stepchild is blue, has a gigantic head, and shoots lasers out of her ice cream.

Syd of Valis is part of a relatively successful series in Japan, aptly called the Valis series. It's a simple deviation from the far more mature main storyline, and though it seems this game is trying its hardest to be taken seriously, it's just NOT POSSIBLE. For the main reason, look no farther than the introductory sequence. We lay witness to our heroine, the unspectacular grade schooler Yuko, innocuously walking down the street licking an ice cream cone. Her frosty reverie is swiftly interrupted, however, by the coming of a strange-looking villain named Megas. Megas looks as if he was ripped from a Super Mario game, colorful and flatteringly caricatured and not in the least bit menacing. He and Yuko bat some cryptic plot banter back and forth, then he vanishes into the air. Deciding to take action, Yuko's ice cream changes into a longsword and she marches on her way to vanquish this mildly threatening evil. Now, if you have trouble suspending your disbelief for a heroine who kills monsters with a transmuted soft-serve treat, then I assure you you're not alone.

It only gets weirder, however. This game made me feel as if I was wandering through some ether-induced haze, with all of the surreal enemies and the truly horrible music. As the SD in the title may suggest to some of the more astute, the entire game is rendered in a "Super Deformed" style, which basically means really, really anime. Thus, Syd of Valis is one of the most hilarious looking games of all time, with its bizarrely ugly character portraits, enemies that only the most fiendish cocaine addict could have conceived, and some bosses that were ripped straight out of a Lewis Carroll fantasy world. The environments are pastel-colored dreamscapes that would probably send Martha Stewart into shock; levels are not only repetitive in design, but just downright weird. Syd of Valis is an utterly bizarre visual wormhole of a game. Things only get weirder when you throw in the music, which is outright bad in addition to trippy and strange. Like the levels, it is highly repetitive, looping after about 20 seconds of melody. All of the tunes are blippy, bass-heavy and extremely annoying. I don't think I've ever muted a game faster than I did Syd of Valis. There are about four sound effects, all for the different shots that your sword can dish out, and then for nothing else.

As far as the gameplay goes, Syd of Valis doesn't really gain much ground. The game attempts a rather primitive equipment system by giving Yuko new costumes and modes of fire after she defeats certain bosses. The selection of weapon modes is actually kind of neat, and I found myself using all four throughout the game. Armors, however, are poorly implemented. Once you get the final suit, there's no reason whatsoever to use any other one, not especially the schoolgirl suit or the China dress. Furthermore, your garb also affects your movement speed, which takes us to another problem in the game. Yuko handles like a rabbit on caffeine; that is, her jumps are awkward and unpredictable, and she slides around with very little traction. This is an especially frustrating quirk when you consider that the game contains a lot of platforming action, which would not be at all difficult if it wasn't for the awkward controls. When you combine this with a suit that doubles Yuko's speed, notably the Speed Suit, then she is almost literally impossible to control. Fortunately, the final armor manages to compromise by setting the speed at 15, but you will probably still experience frustration with her methamphetamine-hyped speed dashing.

Oddly, this behavior is not reflected in any of the enemies...except the bosses. Some of the bosses in Syd of Valis can be hard as hell simply because they hit you over and over again and don't give you much of a chance to hit them back. Yuko has a disarmingly short invincibility period after being hit, so it's very possible that you'll end up dying. Fortunately, it's fairly easy to get extra lives in this game, with just a 5000 point margin before you add another little Yuko to your armada. You'll probably be losing them as fast as you're gaining them, though. This game, despite being tailored to an audience no older than 8, is almost merciless at times. I had to save-state repeatedly to complete it, which by the way was hilariously unsatisfying. They didn't even translate the credits, those lazy bastards.

Syd of Valis just smacks of incompetence and apathy. Everything about the game is decidedly second-string in the effort and budget departments; it's kind of a shame, because I could see this being a lot better than it is with a little more TLC. Not even the title is done right: it's supposed to be called Valis SD, but Telenet interpreted this as Valis Syd, and then turned that into Syd of Valis. There are no characters named Syd in this game and Valis is a weapon, not a place. Way to go! For all it's worth, though, the one strength in Syd of Valis's favor is its memorability. I first played this game at the tender age of 7 and have never forgotten it. And no matter how hard you try, there's no chance in hell you can erase an ice cream sword from your mind.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 02/16/06