Telenet’s Valis series of action-platformers was an unknown quantity to me growing up. I read about its entries on the Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, and Super Nintendo in magazines, so I knew it had something to do with a high school girl in a skimpy outfit battling monsters with a magic sword. Said publications were especially keen to hype the presentation of the TurboGrafx releases, which harnessed then-cutting edge CD-ROM technology to deliver lush soundtracks and loads of fully voiced anime style cut scenes. Until this week, though, I’d never actually sat down and acquainted myself with the swashbuckling escapades of magical girl Yuko.
Naturally, I wanted to begin with the first game, Valis: The Fantasm Soldier. The original 1986 versions were for various Japanese home computers, however, so I sought out one of the later console ports. Of those, the consensus seems to be that the 1992 PC-Engine CD-ROM remake, Mugen Senshi Valis: The Legend of a Fantasm Soldier, is far and away the best. Looking at the contenders side-by-side, it’s easy to tell why. The PCE edition is miles above the rest graphically, and those CD bells and whistles have their intended effect of punching up a stock “everyday kid is whisked away to a fantasy realm and declared the Chosen One” plot. Don’t worry if you don’t understand Japanese, by the way. It’s the sort of narrative one can follow regardless.
The first thing that struck me about Mugen Senshi Valis was that it isn’t nearly as gratuitously sleazy as I was expecting. Yuko’s bod was always front and center in the franchise’s marketing, but the exploitation factor here is limited to her metal bikini “armor” and the odd obligatory panty shot. Beyond that, there are no awkward sexual situations interrupting her seven stage mission to run to the right and cut down the minions of the dark lord Rogles. Pretty tame in a post-Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball world. Fans of full-on hentai had to wait until 2006’s Valis X for their naughty tentacle fix. No, I won’t be covering that one.
As for the gameplay, this is an overall competent side-scrolling hack-and-slasher. Yuko has no shortage of options for dealing with the bloodthirsty beasts plaguing the Dream World of Vecanti. Her standard jump is complimented by a nifty Mega Man-esque ground slide that doubles as an attack. The Valis Sword’s default swing can be supplemented by five different projectile types, each of which can be further upgraded by collecting that same power-up icon multiple times in a row. Dying will remove one level of weapon power, so use caution. Last, and certainly not least, are Yuko’s six spells. These are obtained one at a time by defeating bosses and cost variable amounts of magic points to activate. The most useful for me were Earthquake, which damages all non-flying enemies on-screen, and Tornado, which envelops Yuko in a protective force field that effectively acts as extra health.
Unfortunately, it’s the generally weak level design of Mugen Senshi Valis that holds it back from greatness. The areas Yuko battles through are universally small and simplistic. They look gorgeous and don’t lack for enemy variety, yet I can’t escape the impression that all Yuko’s cool powers feel like overkill when her quest is so short. For example, I barely felt the need to employ spells at all before the finale in Rogles’ castle. These mediocre blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em stages stand out all the more given how much effort clearly went into the pixel art, music, and cut scene production. They’re never sloppy or outright terrible, mind you. They just come across as the bare minimum necessary to ship the product. Factor in unlimited continues and the average player will be able to experience everything the game has to offer within a couple hours.
All that said, don’t mistake the above criticism or the brevity of this review with contempt on my part. Squandered potential aside, I enjoyed Mugen Senshi Valis for the slick, high energy style-over-substance exercise it is. In retrospect, it’s really nothing special and there’s no mystery why the Valis brand fell off the radar once CD-ROM drives started going mainstream. Still, if you’re in the mood to revisit a simpler time when the novelty of high-pitched schoolgirl melodrama on your humble home gaming rig felt like science fiction come to life, I can think of far less agreeable ways to do so.
Twentieth Century Gamer 
Agree with your take. It’s a competent title that rides on its presentation more than anything. Nothing offensive, but hard to remember anything outside of the visuals after it’s all said and done.
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