| Mugen Senshi Valis | |
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 Valis 1's Japanese Mega Drive version cover | |
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Developer(s): |
Telenet Japan |
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Publisher(s): |
NEC (MSX, PC-88/98, FM-77, and SharpX1 JAP) Tokuma Soft (Famicom JAP) RiOT (Famicom, Mega drive and PCE,JAP) Renovation Products (US) Project EGG (PC) Sunsoft and Hudson (PSN) |
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Platform(s)-Release date(s): |
MSX-1986 PC88-1987 PC98,FM-77,SharpX1,Famicom-1988 Sega Mega Drive/Genesis-1990 PC-engine CD/Turbografx CD-1992 Vodafone - 2005 PC (Valis Complete)-2006, 2011 Play Station Network - 2010 |
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Genre(s): |
Action/platform |
Mugen Senshi Valis (夢幻戦士ヴァリス, Mugen Senshi Varisu), also known as Valis: The Fantasm Soldier or Valis 1, is the first game of the Valis series, introducing the main protagonist, Yuuko Asou, and the worlds where the series takes place.
Story[]
Main versions[]
The story tells of a normal school girl, Yuuko Asou starting yet another day at high school. When school ends though, it suddenly starts to rain, so Yuuko tries to find refuge. In doing so, she encounters a fellow student, Reiko Kirishima, who talks with her and leaves her with many unanswered questions. Soon afterward, Yuuko is attacked by a monster but a sword appears in her hands, flashing light that strikes her foe. Trying to run back home, Yuuko finds her whole city to be attacked by monsters.
After defeating their main general, Yuuko is transported to a different world. There, the ghostly figure of Queen Valia appears in front of Yuuko, telling her that the sword named Valis summoned her to save the Dream World, Vecanti, from the claws of the evil emperor Rogles, so she can also save the human world. After being convinced by Valia, Yuuko starts to beat Rogles's generals one by one and get the phantasm jewels they carry, winning new powers.
After beating them, Yuuko goes to Rogles's domains and arrives at his castle only to find that Reiko, who is under under Rogles's control, is guarding the entrance because of her dark emotions. Yuuko fights her and makes her regain consciousness but then Reiko agonizes. Before her death, Reiko tells Yuuko about her bad emotions and her hard life, believing that nobody cared about her, but Yuuko then says her that she truly cares for her and they become friends.
Shortly after, Reiko dies in her hands. Then Rogles appears and challenges Yuuko to enter his castle and fight him. Yuuko does so and kills him, enraged by the death of her friend. After this, Yuuko goes home with the presentiment that she will return to Vecanti someday.
Famicom/NES version[]
The story starts originally in the trailer with Yuuko going to Vecanti and finding out why she was there, although she refused to fight in the beginning. After finding out that her friend Reiko was there serving Rogles, she finally decided to go after him and save Reiko. She returned to the real world finding the Valis sword in the middle of the chaos in the city due to Rogles's invasion
She uses it to get to a safe place where the Valis energy font tells her that Rogles kidnapped the queen of the Dream world, Valia, and that she had to save her by collecting the phantasm jewels from Rogles's generals. She found Reiko in the process and they fought, Reiko ended mortally wounded. Before dying, she helped Yuuko by giving her information about the last phantasm jewel. After Yuuko obtained the last one, she went to face Rogles in his castle.
After she defeated the dark king, she went to free Valia, only to discover that Valia herself was behind the plot to find someone powerful enough to possess her soul, as her body was disintegrating. She tries to possess Yuuko but fails. Yuuko then goes to the Valis font. The font tells her that Valia destroyed the controller and someone powerful needed to be the new controller and tried to force Yuuko to do so. Valia then appears realizing her mistake and uses the phantasm jewels as the containers of her soul so she can become the new controller. The Dream world comes to peace once again and Yuuko returns home.
Gameplay[]
The basic premise of the gameplay in the game, as all the main games from the series, is that of a straightfoward 2D platform game. There are few hidden things.
MSX, PC-88/98, FM-77 and Sharp X1 versions[]
In the first versions of the game, as the gameplay is basically the mentioned above, Yuuko has some weapon improvements to use against the enemies. In order to make the things easier, the player has also the magic crystals that improves Yuuko's levels. The more levels the player has, the more the damage it can take, levels can be improved to 256.
In the MSX version, the levels where the progress was left could be accessed by a password given at the start of It. In the rest of the versions, the player has the option to save the progress at the end of each level.
Power-up list:[]
- Swordshot: a regular basic shoot. In level 1 It fires one projectile, in level 2 It fires two projectiles consecutively, and in level 3 it fires two projectiles in two directions (diagonal up and forward).
- Lasershot: this powerup is a laser as Its namesake shows. In level 1, It fires one laser, In level 2 It fires two lasers and in level 3 It fires two lasers forward and one backward.
- Wideshot: a wide-wave slash of the Valis sword. The more levels, the greater the range It has.
Other Items:[]
- Magic crystals: appears periodically in the levels (except boss fights), they give Yuuko one extra level and recover her HP.
Famicom/NES version[]
This version is a complete reversion of the previous one. In this version the game becomes a 2D exploration game.
Sword Power-up list[]
- Buster saber: the initial sword, shots one regular shot forwards
- High Buster saber: shots three regular shots, one forwards, one up forwards and one down forwards.
- Wide Buster saber: shots a wide sword wave shot.
- Laser saber: shots a wider version of the aforementioned shot
- Valis sword: shots many wide shots of the aforementioned with full power.
Other offensive items[]
- Boomerang: a boomerang shot that has a high reach. When the player gets It, It starts with 10 stocks, for each Boomerang item It finds after finding the first, the player will stock up 10 more units.
- Bomb: a bomb with low reach but high damage power. When the player gets It, It starts with 5 stocks, for each Bomb item It finds after finding the first, the player will stock up 5 more units.
- Valis Quake: a jewel similar to the phantasm jewels, It can cause an earthquake that destroys every enemy onscreen. When the player gets It, It starts with 5 stocks, for each Bomb item It finds after finding the first, the player will stock up 5 more units.
Equipment Items[]
- Power Boots: this pair of boots helps Yuuko to move faster
- Valis Boots: this pair of boots helps Yuuko to jump higher, It will also become stable on ice.
Other items[]
- Drink: Heals two HP points.
- Drug: Heals all HP points.
- Barrier: Makes Yuuko invulnerable for a short time.
- Pot/Basket
- Flower
- Hammer
Mega Drive/Genesis and PC-Engine versions[]
The things that characterizes Valis 1 are Its attack improvement system and the magic spells. Yuuko starts with a standard range attack with her sword but she can get different class of power-ups along the levels, getting consecutively the same power-ups 2 times or more will make the attack type of the power-ups become stronger and stronger until reaching a certain level.
Power-up list:[]
- Genesis version:
- Swordshot: a regular basic shoot. In level 1 It fires one projectile, in level 2 It fires two projectiles consecutively, and in level 3 it fires two projectiles in two directions (diagonal up and forward).
- Lasershot: this powerup is a laser as Its namesake shows. In level 1, It fires one laser, In level 2 It fires two lasers and in level 3 It fires two lasers forward and one backward.
- Arrowshot: a homing shot that aims towards the enemies. It fires two shots in level 1 and increases by one with each level gained.
- Holy sword: a great range shooting weapon. In level 1 It fires a big shot, In level 2 It fires a larger shot and in level 3 It fires a laser forward and one upwards.
- Final sword: a twirling shot that explodes with contact and the most powerful powerup in the game. Each level raises Its explosion range.
- PC-Engine CD version:
- Swordshot: a regular basic shoot. In level 1 It fires one projectile, in level 2 It fires two projectiles consecutively, and in level 3 it fires two projectiles in two directions (diagonal up and forward).
- Lasershot: this powerup is a laser as Its namesake shows. In level 1, It fires one laser, In level 2 It fires two lasers and in level 3 It fires two lasers forward and one backward.
- Arrowshot: a homing shot that aims towards the enemies. It fires one shot in level 1 and increases by two with each level gained.
- Slimeshot: a bombardment of slime bubbles that bounces forward in the ground. It increases Its number of bubbles depending on the level.
- Wideshot: a wide-wave slash of the Valis sword. The more levels, the greater the range It has.
Bosses and Spells:[]
The magic spells are earned with each phantasm jewel you take from the defeated bosses. The amount of time you can use them depends on the amount of magic points (MP) they consume each time you use them, you can recover magic points by collecting magic crystals along the levels.
- Boss: Gyeda
- Spell obtained: Earthquake
- Boss: Geeva
- Spell obtained: Ice feather
- Boss: Venon
- Spell obtainted: Fire ring
- Boss: Izard
- Spell obtained: Tornado
- Boss: Voldes
- Spell obtained: Giga thunder
- Boss: Reiko
- Spell obtained: Death flash
- Boss: Rogles
- Spell obtained: nothing
Other Items:[]
- Item spheres: this spheres closes items inside them, to liberate and collect them Yuuko must hit them with any attack.
- Hearts: their utility consist on recovering Yuuko's heal points (HP) bar, depending on the size (small or big) will depend the amount of HP the bar will recover.
- Magic crystals: they recover Yuuko's used magic points (MP) bar, depending on the size (small or big) will depend the amount of MP the bar will recover.
- 1up: as It names says, Its an extra life represented by a Yuuko's face.
Versions[]
The game's first version was created in 1986 for the MSX. One year later the game was ported to the NEC's Japanese computers PC-88 in 1987 and PC-98 in 1988. That same year it was ported to the Fujitsu's FM-77 and Sharp X1 computers, also a Famicom (Japanese NES) version of the game was launched. All these versions were only released in japan.
The new adaptations of this game were developed and published for the Sega Mega drive/ Genesis in 1990 and the PC-engine CD/ Turbografx-CD in 1991. The mentioned version was included in the compilation of Valis Complete and Valis Complete Plus in 2006 and 2011 and re-launched in 2010 for Play Station Network.
In 2005, Bandai made a remake of Valis I for mobile phones only in Japan.
Differences:[]
- The Japanese exclusive versions (MSX, PC-88, PC-98, and Famicom) related the story in a different way of the new ones (Sega Mega drive/Genesis and PCE CD/TGCD).
- The Famicom version was a maze-like game, making It more confusing than the rest.
- The PCE/TGCD version is the only one that has voice acting. It also has a vocal ending credits music.
- The character design is different between the old (MSX and PC88/98) versions and the new one (PCE-CD/TGCD).
Reception[]
Due to the innovative concept and gameplay for the ages when It was created, the game had a great popularity in japan being very well received by critics and public and, in consequence, having many adaptions to different consoles and leading to the creation of a sequel.
Scripts[]
Main Article: Valis: The Fantasm Soldier/Script
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- This game was the most remade version of the series, being adapted to 11 consoles counting the PC, the mobile and the downloadable ones.
- The Famicom version had an anime-style commercial in Japan. This is the only Valis animation ever made outside the games.
- The PCE-CD version has a vocal version of the ending (Miss Blue no hohoemi) singed by Yuuko's seiyuu herself. This is the only vocal theme ever made in the series.
- This is the only game of the series that doesn't feature the Valis armor's ultimate form.
- In the background buildings of the first stage (the city) from the Mega Drive/Genesis version, there are many posters with the logos from Telenet Japan, RiOT, Renovation products and NEC.
- This was the only one Valis game that has been adapted to the Famicom/ NES and also the first adapted to a Nintendo console, this wasn't repeated until Super Valis IV for the Super Famicom/ SNES.
External links[]
- Valis (genesis) on gamefaqs
- Valis I on electro haze
- Valis (TGCD) on The Brothers Duomazov's page
- Valis I on mobygames
- Valis I English cutscenes (Sega Genesis version)
- Mugen Senshi Valis's Japanese Famicom trailer
en:Mugen Senshi Valis